Backcountry Skiing Trip Report's of November

Tye Dye Twins

Tye Dye Twins

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Sep 30, 2014
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Here's a "catch up" report on this year's backcountry skiing adventures. With the thin amount of snow most of us are stuck riding the higher terrain, and as one avalanche observer stated "it seems the avalanche season started before the ski season". I will add last Sunday's backcountry tour in a seperate thread but enjoy these pictures of the November backcountry skiing scene.

Day 2 - Grizzly Gulch
Our 1st storm in November provided enough snow to encourage the powder hounds to rip up some pow. With Alta closed to uphill traffic, it was time to hit grizzly gulch.
My twin brother (the photographer) ready to get after it!




This looked like a good place to drink a beer and enjoy the great outdoors!


The skiing matched the name of the gulch. Grizzly!



One last shot of me at the parking lot.


Day 3 - Decided to rally the troops and get after the monster 3 foot storm that pounded the wasatch! The groups consisted of my twin and myself (skiers), Ron and Dj (splitboarders). We skinned up Grizzly Gulch to Twin Lake Pass and stopped short of summiting Patsey Marley.
Ahh, what we snow enthuisiests just love to see! A car burial in the Alta Parking Lot!


Then what we snow enthuisiests just hate to see! Avalanches we present along Twin Lake pass.



DJ and myself at twin lakes pass, eventually we backed off on the idea of summiting Patsy Marley.


The powder turns were BLOWER POWDER!


DJ snowboarding down Grizzly Gulch.
 
Awesome! i've been wanting to get into alpine touring. I need a lot more avalanche training before I'm ready though. Avys scare me.
 
steve said:
Awesome! i've been wanting to get into alpine touring. I need a lot more avalanche training before I'm ready though. Avys scare me.
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Seemes like a healthy fear. But there are ways to midigate such hazards and still have a good day. Grady being the noobie of the group is just starting to get avalanche trainning from me this year. Luckily I can say with confidence that I have never been caught in a avalanche in the backcountry. I have in the open terrain of the resorts though at both snowbird and park city.
 
Geezz that's rekindling a few memories. Back in the mid 70's I spent a couple of years in Price. Not sure what the present system at Snowbird is but there weren't any season passes then-you just bought coupon books for however many days you wanted and my girl friend and I bought 100 days worth each for 2 winters. We had friends in SLC so camped with them most weekends. Loved White Pine, Wilbere's, and Mach Schnell. On a good powder day, pretty hard to beat.

I also spent some time on the ski patrol at Bridger Bowl and remember taking a couple of rides but where else can one throw bombs and shoot recoilless and get paid for it? I had season passes there for 40 years. Terrain wise, Bridger and Alta are twins.

Thanks!
 
John Goering said:
Geezz that's rekindling a few memories. Back in the mid 70's I spent a couple of years in Price. Not sure what the present system at Snowbird is but there weren't any season passes then-you just bought coupon books for however many days you wanted and my girl friend and I bought 100 days worth each for 2 winters. We had friends in SLC so camped with them most weekends. Loved White Pine, Wilbere's, and Mach Schnell. On a good powder day, pretty hard to beat.

I also spent some time on the ski patrol at Bridger Bowl and remember taking a couple of rides but where else can one throw bombs and shoot recoilless and get paid for it? I had season passes there for 40 years. Terrain wise, Bridger and Alta are twins.
Click to expand...
I have been skiing for 23 years now and 10 of them were at Snowbird and the last 6 years have been pure backcountry skiing. This year I lucked out and got a season's pass to snowbird for $80, since my dad is a volunteer host at Snowbird. I think most of the visits I will be making to the bird will be to tour outside of the resort in american fork canyon (mill canyon peak, ant knolls, shaffer fork), which I have done in the past. Still the majority of my ski days (average 80+ days a season) will be spent in the backcountry.

I did get to see Bridger Bowl last year when I took a trip to Bozeman. I pulled a muscle on the 1st day (at history rock) and still toured the next day to deer creek peak. By day 3 I couldn't make the trip to Bridger Bowl. My buddies skied "the ridge" and I was super jealous after seeing that! I got a good view of the terrain from the hwy and I think BB is much more steep than A.L.T.A. (Another Long Traverse Again). If I were a resort type of guy Bozeman would be my type of place. It is very similar to Utah's resort scene.

May the blue light on main street flash for you all season long!;)
 
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