Jan 28 - Feb 3

Jan. 28 

Ski Tour - easy

4hr

3400' Gain 

Our group collectively backed off of our objective after making it 1/3 of the way up.  It's always  a huge relief when everyone in the group has the same feeling. Too many red-flags popped up to continue upwards; inconsistent weather, new snow and collapsing snowpack. 3 red flags are 3 more than enough to get me to turn around in avalanche terrain. Not worth it. Not wanting to call it for the day, we headed up to Lake Blanche for a look, which is a pretty mellow walk with some fun route finding. However, while we were leaving the area I tweaked my hip nicely when I caught my ski tip on a rock while performing a basic "stand on your skis and glide" maneuver, however it happened to be while going over a pile of rocks freshly covered by new snow. - Ice, foam roller, stretch for the evening.

Jan 29 - AM

Shoreline + Red Butte

1hr 18

1000' Gain

Snowing hard. 

Went easy. Zoo TH, up around the Shoreline paths. Surprisingly nicely foot packed trails. No sign of the hip feeling whacky. I miss dirt.

PM - ski tour

55min

1800'gain

Short Swing lap before dinner. Long mellow run through perfectly spaced pines and aspens. Met a couple of rad dudes with the same agenda at the TH. We all stuck together and moved pretty quickly, which was awesome. Hip felt slightly tight.

Jan 30 - 

Working, eating and watched it snow. Rest.

Jan 31 

Ski

Afternoon Lifts @ Alta. 

Tweaked my same hip pretty good again on my 1st run, 2nd turn. Skied into a mogul really awkwardly in the flat light. I always get clumsy in the easy spots. Tried to stay out for a few more hours. Definitely agitated it. Foam roller, stretch, ice and Aleve again for the evening. I'm getting old.

Feb 1

ski tour - easy

4hr

3300' Gain

Met up with a good buddy that I hadn't seen since his climbing trip to Pakistan this past summer/fall. So it was nice to catch up, talk some smack, and ski a little. It ended up being a day of just walking and looking around since the new snow was downright deadly as it fell in an "upside-down layering" (top is heavier than the bottom), so we kept it pretty mellow and mostly stayed in the trees. Managed to gain the upper Red Pine lake, which was nice since I'd never been there in winter. Hip felt a little tight during sections of breaking trail.

Feb 2

Mt Olympus (saddle)

1hr52

3650' Gain

Standard Wasatch Blvd TH. The trail ran nicely up through Blister Hill, struggled afterwards in the upper steep sections through the forests. I didn't take any extra grip today, which would've been nice as it's just a steeply packed path currently. No real sign of kick steps as they get plowed over from descending traffic. My hip gave me some grief during the steeper climbs, and felt a little tight for a bit of the descent too.

Feb 3

Rattlesnake + Pipeline

1hr10

1000' Gain

Started at the Rattlesnake Gulch TH and headed up to the Pipeline trail. Quick out-and-back to the main SLC overlook. Returning I did another out-and-back and planned to hit Church Fork, but called it early so I could catch the commercials during the Super Bowl. My favorites were Taco Bell, GoPro, Oreo, VW and Dodge.

Overview:

Gain:14,150' (5600' running)

Time: 12ish

I still feel that I haven't had a big day of ski touring this year (frustrating), but it is nice to get out and enjoy the mountains. I guess I'm still going to mention skiing in my weekly schedule as it is good training. It seems there's been a substantial amount of getting shut down on ascents before reaching ridge lines or summits due to most of the Wasatch Range being covered in a persistent weak layer of facets that are now buried well into our snowpack. Guessing by the amount of activity in the past 4 days this will take some time to heal up (11 large unintentional human triggered slides since Jan 31). Not a bad time to make good route finding decisions and head to some low angle, sheltered terrain, and make the most of it… or just keep the running shoes laced up.

Sundial Peak in the clouds.

Brody working. This was as far up as we dared to go that day. Still great skiing even though the shot was short lived.

On top of Short Swing. L - R: My goofy ass, Trent and Tim. Good dudes! Guessing they're probably runners guessing by how fast we made it up there. Hope to see those guys on the trails this coming season. Weird that we're all in Orange gear. I couldn't find any of my stuff so I grabbed everything that I wore last season, which was strange since I'm pretty organized with all of my stuff. Especially ski gear.

Alta. Lee's Corner. 

Shingo Ohkawa, gaining one of the lower west flanks of Lake Peak in Red Pine gulch.

Pinot Crag. 

View are deece. Skiing, not so much. 

Rime on the trees. This stuff also caked the snow a good bit with a breakable crust that would probably blow-out any olympians knee.