Red Baldy

Yesterday big Teague, Layne, and Josh decided to break away from the monotony of resort walking for a proper day in the mountains.  With the terrible snowpack...er, low coverage and weak structure, we've been mostly just hiking in bounds so as to not wreck our skis or our knees (Teague reprimanded us yesterday for complaining, saying that if we are in the mountains and there's snow to ski then we should take it as a blessing).

With low expectations, I figured we might not ski much but I just wanted to stand on top of a mountain.  Here are a few pictures of a nice day we were just able to sneak in before this nice little storm.

Clear up high while the PM2.5 was pushing the red zone at 144 down low.  Yuck.

The boys falling in line.

Teague is pretty psyched on his new gear.  Aliens and Magicos!

Getting a little boney

Dang.  Out of snow.

Looking to stand on top of something.

Summit!

They guys are psyched!

Any skiing is good skiing!

Josh dropping in for home

Also of note, the Utah ski mountaineering racing scene is exploding.  Our last Citizens Race was Tuesday evening at Brighton and again, we had nearly 100 people in attendance.  Layne Caldwell took his turn to set up the course and bring pies for the winners.  His nice write up and pictures can be found here.  

The next race is January 7th at 7:00 PM.  Come enjoy a night chasing friends and train for your bigger goals in the mountains.  Hope to see you all there.  

Wasatch Skimo Citizen's Race #1: Skin the Turkey

Well, maybe it's the crappy snow pack or maybe people are buying into the "light is right" movement cause we just had nearly 100 racers show up for the first Citizen's race.  Thanksgiving morning was a huge success not only because of the massive participation but it was well supported by Skimo.co, the Sport Loft, Kate's Tram Bars, BCA, and my closet which keeps spitting out some hand me downs at these events.   Thanks to Jason Dorais, Chad and Emily B, and Tom Goth for setting the course!  This year, eight individuals are in charge on one race each so we'll get some different perspectives on what makes a great race.  Also, we are nearly half way to our goal of $2500 of donations to fund the series and pay for insurance for the whole lot of you!

Here are a couple pics and an awesome video made by Kyle Walcott:

Wasatch Citizen Series from Kyle Walcott on Vimeo.

Waiting around for me to draw a crooked start line and yell, "GO!"

90 people streaming up the icy skin track, earning their turkey!

The insanely fast Gemma Arro Ribot!

Jason and Tom putting the hurt on each other

The next race is Tuesday, Dec 3rd at 7PM.  Park by the church.  Please visit utahskimo.org to register and make a token donation and fill out waivers before hand.

Also, Brighton has been incredibly generous to allow unrestricted uphill traffic but we are in danger of losing this privilege as some folks have been wandering too close to avalanche control operations on snow days.  The new rule passed down by the Ski Patrol is that if it has snowed at all, please check in with either a patroller or anyone in the parking lot with a radio to find out where it is safe to travel.  So rational.  So generous.  So easy.  Do it.