Haystack Peak

I got back out for a field day yesterday, after staring at a computer screen for way to long this week, responding to comments about a trail project we are working on in the Abajo Mountains.

We took the machines up to Warner Lake and cleared the roofs on the Forest Service cabin and shed and then went for a tour into upper Mill Creek to look at the snow pack. We saw a number of large avalanches from last weeks storm.

The snow surface actually had gotten quite wind and sun damaged this week so the skiing conditions were not great above tree line, but the snow was still good down in the trees.

Winter Aspens

North Face of Haystack

Skining up towards Haystack

South Mountain and the South Fork

We got out to South Mountain last week to ski what are long talus slopes in the summer but when they get covered with sufficient snow in the winter they become the best runs in the range. A surface hoar layer buried by the last storm stopped us from venturing all the way to the top of the mountain, but the part we skiied was perfect snow.

Perfect La Sal Powder

Sunny days and North Faces. Todd and the bottom part of the runs.

The blur of white and red in the middle of the photo is a local skiier that is twice my age. He beat me up and down the mountain twice that day. I hope I am doing that at his age.

We went back up north last weekend to celebrate Rowans and Grandma Murdocks Birthdays and we got one day of skiing in on Presidents Day. We had a nice little tour up the South Fork of the Provo on the backside of Cascade Mountain. I had never been there before. It is a bit longer approach than other Wasatch locations, but there is some wild terrain up in the high bowls . Photo is of Todd and Tuk breaking trail in the sticky spring like snow. It was Tuks first ski tour and he learned the hard way to not jump in front of someone on skis heading downhill.

Elk Ridge Winter

With the massive amount of snow that the southern mountains have received we decided to try and make it out to our cabins on Elk Ridge and clean the roofs off to avoid the roofs caving in. I thought we would be able to drive a ways up the South Cottonwood road but we had to start snowmobiling from Highway 95, which made for a very long day.

I broke the clutch on one snowmobile in the first mile and had to tow it back to the highway. We saw 8 good sized bull elk that were having a hard time getting around in the snow, hope they make it through the winter. We finally made it to the cabins and removed the snow and got back to Moab at about 9:30

Slickrock avalanche. We actually got enough snow down low that we saw good sized avalanches on the slickrock. I believe this one is on Ute lands and it actually took out a fair number of trees.

Removing snow from the Gooseberry Cabins

Winter at Sego Flats. Nobody had been up there yet this winter

Elk Ridge Winter