Woodson

I headed out to Mt. Woodson to do some climbing with some old friends in San Diego this past weekend. We had a fantastic time, repeating some of the classics that we'd done before and trying a few other new ones. A few photos of Galo leading the uber-classic Robbins Crack. A few years ago when I started leading 5.10 trad this was one of the first 5.10s I lead. Always fun. Beautiful, splitter thin hands. Too bad it's not longer.





Zack and Galo goofing around at the bottom of Lie Detector, a burly 5.12b crack, that Galo was working on.

DeMoisy Peak

A couple of days later, on April 21st, I met up with my friends Kevin and Chris to see if we could catch some early morning skiing in up at SnowBasin Resort which had closed for the season. I picked up Kevin at 5:45am and we met up with Chris at the parking lot at 6:15am and were skinning moments later. It had been a very warm night with temps not reaching below freezing at all. However, the snow was still very hard as we skinned up, due to the strong radiation cooling from the clear night. I didn't think we'd find corn snow, but as we got up higher, it became apparent that we'd hit it just right if we skied a SE aspect. DeMoisy Peak, at 9369', has a nice SE slope that comes off of it, and it seemed like a good spot to get the goods. Kevin and Chris near the top of DeMoisy.



An hour and a half and 3000 vertical feet of skinning later, we were on top. We had great views of Strawberry Peak to the south.



And Mt. Ogden to the north.



Chris and Kevin on top.



We had lovely 1/2" corn snow on the decent, but you had to get there early for it today. We dropped in at 7:55am! Kevin enjoying the early morning corn.





And Chris's turn.




A look back at DeMoisy Peak and the SE facing ramp that we skied off of it.



Back at the car by 8:30am, back in Ogden by 9am. And I still had the whole day left to get stuff done. Gotta love the spring!

Last couple ski adventures of the season

I had a few fun backcountry ski days before I packed up the bags from Utah. On April 18th, Doug and I had a fantastic day checking out a great spot in the Ogden Mountains that he wishes I not name. It was a beautiful spring day. Tons of sun, totally bluebird. Snow ended up being better than we expected with a mix of quasi-corn, creamy wet snow, and we even found a little bit of powder. We knew it was spring because we had to do a stream crossing.



Once we were safely across the river, we worked our way up higher, enjoying a fantastic ridgewalk on a lovely spring day.





With the warm temps from the previous day and the strong spring sun, the naturals were running on the steep slopes.



While skinning up the ridge we came across some nice quasi-corn that we figured we ought to get on before it turned to mash potatoes. Not a bad choice. Doug and Saringa with Ben Lomond in the background. I haven't put up a post about it yet, but we skied that NE face of Ben Lomond, just behind Saringa, back in March. It was rad.



After that quick lap we headed back up to explore the next drainage over.



We found a fun little coulior type thing to ski that actually held some bonafied powder in it.



Then worked our way over to a fun gladed area with this nice little rollover. Doug purposefully cut a few push-a-lanches. Fortunately his dog didn't chase them.



Then things opened up nicely into a wide open bowl with somewhat heavy but still decent snow.

Doug.




Joshua.



Doug and Saringa with some cool snow runnels beyond.



A closer look at the snow.



Then we broke trail up another ridge to get a view back at what we'd just skied and look over into some of the other adjacent canyons.







Needless to say, there is a lot of great skiing to be had around this area, it just requires a little bit more effort. A fantastic spring day to be out in the mountains.

The Way to End the Season

April showers may bring May flowers, but around Utah they just brought some deep snowy goodness for the last week at work. The last few days, April 15-17th, were filled with lots of powder turns and avalanche control. Who needs sun and corn snow? This is my kind of spring skiing.

Morgan doing some Avi Control.



And "stability testing."





Joshua catching some air and enjoying the late season pow.





Skinned up to the top of James Peak for Avi Control on our last work day, April 17th. The views were superb.









And the skiing wasn't bad either.









Mission accomplished.