More Summer Skiing

Andrea heading towards Reids Peak in the Uinta Mountains

An exceptional mid-June week. Despite its above-average size (as of a few weeks ago), our snowpack is dwindling quickly due to above average temperatures. Summer comes at us quicker and hotter these days! We skied Suicide Chute on Wednesday and Friday mornings before work, then went back up the Mirror Lake Highway on Saturday and skied in the Bald Mountain / Reids Peak area. Andrea was content with a three day ski week, but I wasn't (shocking!), so on Sunday I went up to Alta for a Main Chute lap.

Wednesday June 7 and Friday June 9

Suicide Chute both mornings...

Saturday June 10

Back up to the Uintas and Mirror Lake Highway. Started with a couple laps off the east face of Bald Mountain, then one in the Bald/Reids amphitheatre, then finished it off with a glorious run down the north couloir on Reids Peak...

Sunday June 11

Solo Main Chute at Alta - still in great conditions...

Non-Skiing transition to summer - running up Grandeur Peak and post-run thirstiness...

Uinta Summer Shred and Lake Blanche

Andrea on the Murdock Mountain ridge - above Bald Mountain Pass along the Mirror Lake Highway

WE FINALLY HIT THE UINTAS IN PRIME SPRING/SUMMER CONDITIONS!!!!!

I knew the Mirror Lake Highway was semi-open last weekend, but with Andrea out of town I decided to hold off until she got back before heading up there. We had never skied in the Uintas before and with a fat snowpack and sunshine forecasted for the weekend, the car was pointed in that direction early Saturday morning.

The road was plowed but none of the pulloffs or trailheads had really been plowed on the upper section of the Mirror Lake Highway. We started the morning near the Trial Lake campground and headed towards Mount Watson. This mountain has an awesome (steep!) and aesthetic east face. We skied that one twice. Then we went back to the car and drove a little further up and over Bald Mountain Pass. It was too late in the day to ski Bald's east face, so we looked for something fun and north facing, Murdock Mountain meets that low-hanging fruit criteria. A short bootpack to the top led to some more really nice, steep turns in great spring conditions. Good enough to do it again. What a day!

The ski season is winding down, so we are starting to mix in some more midweek hiking to keep the adventure stoke high. I added some pictures of our hike to Lake Blanche to the bottom of this post.

I've been updating the blog every week, recapping the ski days. I'm going to try and keep the weekly posts going this summer and fall (or thereabouts). With neither of us really running competitively anymore (although we are both ramping up our running again), we sort of (well, completely) stopped updating our running logs, so I'm going to try and keep Wasatch and Beyond updated more frequently instead.

I'm also going try and clean up the links on the menu bar. That might be over-reaching.

Saturday June 3rd - Mirror Lake Highway

First up - Mount Watson:

Andrea calls this situation a classic "Happy Jake = Happy Life". She's the best!

I really wish she told me that I had something on my teeth

Looking back at Mount Watson's East face

Round Two - Murdock Mountain:

Mount Watson is the big one in the middle - that's the face we skied earlier in the morning

Provo River Falls on the way home - simply raging!

This is what is usually looks like...

Wednesday May 31 - Lake Blanche