Thanks to Coronavirus (aka Covid-19) I’m not recreating nearly as much as I used to. So to feel like I’m still outdoorsy, I’ve taken to wearing outdoor gear everywhere I go. Mountain bike knee pads work great when I’m on the ground to pull weeds. I discovered that a rock-climbing helmet is the perfect shape to line with tin foil as protection from Corona-causing 5G frequencies. And when the CDC recommended everyone wear masks in public, I dug my Ski Utah Buff out of an old pack. Walking into Home Depot, I look like a fly fisher about to throw an articulated Woolly Bugger down the plumbing aisle.
Why am I in this state of paranoid outdoor-fakery? Because “The ‘Rona” shut down ski resorts. Following that unprecedented bummer, Corona Swarms, (aka people who don’t give a fuck) engulfed the Wasatch backcountry like a horde of famished insects. Pleas from rescue workers to “dial it back” went ignored as skiers did the opposite. They instead went after big lines and set off multiple avalanches with no regard for what injury or death in a remote place might mean for overwhelmed medical professionals. Luckily nobody, even the caught-and-carried, died from the many human triggered avalanches.
This sad state of backcountry affairs is the reason I chose not to go ski-touring during a pandemic, as I expressed in my last post. See, staying safe in the backcountry is all about managing uncertainty. There are tools such as AIARE’s Decision Making Framework one can employ to avoid avalanche terrain. I’m familiar and comfortable with using these checklists to stay out of trouble. What I’m not comfortable with is the wild card that has multiplied these past six weeks, namely other people. There is no part of AIARE’s framework that covers the amount of inexperienced skiers in the backcountry who bought their touring setup just last week and think they’re ready to center-punch Coalpit Headwall. In fact, it’s now impossible to find climbing skins because everyone is panic-buying backcountry ski gear. This is true according to a Salt Lake Tribune article.
I’m not judging you, dear reader, if you’ve been backcountry skiing during a global pandemic. I’m just laying out my reasoning for not joining in on the fun to make me feel better about my own probably irrational fear.
It’s almost May as I write this, and not much has improved as far as crowding. Except the hordes have started to move on to Utah state parks and low-elevation trails. I took my family to see the Spiral Jetty over the weekend, and was appalled to see hundreds of people crawling around on the iconic, earthen sculpture. I stupidly thought driving hours on dirt roads to the middle of nowhere would get us away from the multitudes. Boy how wrong I was.
I’d hoped Utah residents would “flatten the curve” by now through social-distancing so I could ski corn snow (yea, I know, first-world problems). But it’s not looking like we will accomplish that goal until late June. I’m hopeful the warm weather will thin out high-elevation crowds and stabilize the snowpack. If so, I might consider putting skins on skis for an epilogue to a season cut short.
In the meantime, I have been riding bikes because trails haven’t been any more crowded than a typical Saturday. I’ve also re-discovered hidden gems in my own neighborhood; places like Hidden Hollow. That’s where I’m teaching my boy to mountain bike. It’s really annoying though, because he won’t stop whining about the tin foil inside his helmet.
Wondering how the 2020/2021 season will be? Hardly anyone can give an answer to this question. But I really want to go to the mountains.