A Day of Skiing the Uintah Mountains

Only a few small clouds dotted the sky and the landscape was covered in white as I descended into a see of powdery fluff. Still learning to ski the soft stuff, I enjoyed every turn nonetheless. Skiing off of a peak that rises up nearly 11,000 feet in the Uintah Mountains was a sheer joy! The views were astonishing as I could take in the Wasatch and Uintah ranges from where I stood.

Yesterday, I had the privilege to snowmobile into some remote terrain the Uintah Mountains. With Ben Light, his brother Billy and their friend Corby, I was able to ski some amazing terrain. We arrived at the Bear River Trailhead just after 8:30 in the morning. We staged up the sleds and loaded everything up.

Last year, I had the opportunity to ski back into Boundary Creek with Golden. We got to explore that area in the winter. Now, it was off to a new area. We road the snowmobiles between 12-15 miles in to a remote bowl.

The ride in was challenging. I have not ridden a snowmobile for at least 18 years. I believe that the last time was when my family took a Christmas trip up to Yellowstone when I was 18. It is a bit of a learning curve to get back on one of these machines. They don’t tend to turn as easy as you want them to. Luckily, I didn’t crash one and only got stuck 4 or 5 times.

This hill was a steep bugger. I had to go at it 3 times before I made it to the top.

Once back into the bowl we parked and prepped up for the skin up to the peak. We had the place to ourselves. It was heaven!

Here is the four of us before making our first ski run. You can see the pristine hill behind us ready to be attacked.

The skin up was not too bad. It took us about 40 minutes to skin up about 800 vertical feet.

Ben made a great trail blazer. He worked hard to cut an excellent skin track for us.

We avoided the large cornice and skied around the trees for an epic descent. Yes, I did crash a couple of times, but that is part of the fun right?

The top was very wind-swepped with a couple of these big cornices hanging over.

After resting up, we did it all over again. The second descent was better than the first, but boy, my legs were tired. I still need to increase my leg stamina while skiing. Skiing powder takes a lot out of me physically.

The views were astonishing all around us!

After the second run the sun began getting low in the mountains. We opted to forego a third run and make our way out so that we weren’t riding out in the dark. The ride out was much smoother than in. We didn’t have the climbs, I was more comfortable, and we had a solid track to follow the entire way out. What an amazing day in the Uintah Mountains!

Some great snow to play in!