After having taken last years AVY – AIREI I I was hungry for more skiing. Thats why this year I had plan at least two trips to the snow. I didn’t know if this was going to be possible, since having had Baby Alesso just in December, but definitely was going to give a try.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT.
I was tracking a snowstorm in late February and decided to go for the first time to the Wasatch area in Utah and booked my backcountry tours.
Keep in mind that Salt Lake City is only 40 minutes away to most ski resorts around the area, so I rented a car and decided to stay in town and drive the two days for my backcountry tour early in the mornings. Landed early morning, at around 11am and went directly to the Wasatch Touring store… They have everything you need from skiing to Mountain biking. Check it out if you are ever in the area – 10/10 in service, products and knowledge.
My guide for the first day is a known high altitude climber. I won’t name him because the experience wasn’t that good at all. The guy had climbed Everest I don’t know how many times (13 or 14 times), and guides high alpinism all over the world, but his expertise is not skiing per say. Having said that, the guide just kept on going at his own pace an leaving me behind while going uphill… Having only skin up 4 times in my life, I didn’t control the side turn kick that well, and 1 out of 4 turns I kept falling into deep powder. It was an exhausting experience. The snow was great, don’t get me wrong, but the guide was literally just a guide, not an instructor. We skin up 3 times in the big cottonwood canyon area, gaining around 3000 ft at the end of the day, while the last skin up really left me without any gas. I literally had to stop every 5-10 minutes to take deep breath and was starting to see dark.
That first night I had dinner at cool sushi place in Downtown SLC called iTTO sushi. It also has a cool bar next door with a kinda speakeasy atmosphere.
Its crazy to experience this whole backcountry skiing experience…. A.K.A :”Earn your turns”. Skinning/touring up an avg of 5 to 7 hours a day to just be able to ski downhill maybe for 15 to 20 minutes and if you are lucky enough you will find good skiing terrain… But let me tell something, If you do find that good powder, those 5-7 entire hours will be worth it, and if you do not find excellent snow conditions at least know that you have earned at least a king size Big Mac Meal with a McFlurry.
Luckly, for day 2 I had booked my backcountry guide through another company. I will name this guide, Alex Lemieux who was just a rockstar instructor. Communication was flawless… I was pretty beat up from the day prior, so decided to take the lift up at Alta to do some sidecountry skiing at the area around Catherine Pass.
I talked to him about my experience the day before with the other guide and Alex just decided to focus on my technique and form. We went up and down like 6-7 times in the same bowl, just to get some better skiing feedback. He even took some great pictures of me on the best “Free Refills” skiing kinda day I ever had.
Ended the day getting a couple runs in the Alta resort, which were pretty fun as well. Skiing with an instructor, no matter your expertise will always elevate your experience, since they will for sure where to find the kickers, snow stash and secret places.
Drove back to SLC, and had dinner at this cool fancy restaurant in my hotel. (the Kipton – Monaco) called Bambara… Highly recommend!
Anywho, I was really looking forward to putting to use the new set of skills I had obtained while at Alta. If you have read my blog, you know that last year I made a road trip through part of the US, and while on that road trip I came across the magical Mt. Hayden Backcountry Lodge. When I ended my road trip I immediately contacted the twins (with whom I had completed the AVY I course) and told them we needed to reserve there asap, and so we did.
CRESTED BUTTE, CO.
We also decided to make a quick 2 day stop at Crested Butte (my favorite place on earth) ski area so we could warm up our legs and spend some quality time with some other friends (shemaya and Michael).
It was also my first time at a resort for closing weekend, so it was pretty interesting and fun to watch all the people dressed up in funny customes while skiing. Foodwise, other than the breakfast place I already talked about in my Crested Butte MTB bike trip blog piece, we didn’t run with luck… they were just ok restaurants.
OURAY, CO.
We then drove to stay one night in Telluride, and had an amazing dinner at this Italian place called “Rustico”. Definitely a most whenever around the area. We barely slept because we were doing all the packing for the adventure/hut trip, and at around 6:00am we were already on our way to the town of Ouray to make a quick stop by any breakfast place and to pick up some snowshoes for Michael and some any backpack for the twins. We drove up a 3.5 miles up the mountain to camp bird. Here we had to park our car, hike up 1.5 miles or so, until we could switch to our skis to skin up.
It was quite an experience, first to hike up with our skis hanging from our pack, and then to carry a shitty sled up the mountain. The skin up was relatively easy until we encounter a couple avalanches on the way. It was a nightmare honestly, it was actually so bad, that we ended up leaving the sled up in the hut, and carrying our Doble backpacks in top of us. Just look at Alex frustration carrying the sled over some avalanches debris. What was supposed to be a short 2 hours hike up ended up being somewhere around 4-5 hours. Not only that, but it made some huge blisters in Ale’s foot, making it hard for him to ski on the next couple of touring days.
We got to the hut, and I saw for the first time the second hut completed… It looked amazing, has everything you need…. everything from electricity to hot water….you even have a wood fire powered hot tub. Eric (the owner, an ex head chef for some fancy restaurants in Denver and boulder) cooks breakfast and dinner on a daily basis for its guests. For our first night Eric cooked some delicious chicken curry which was perfect to regain all the energy we had spent on the hike up. Also the first lesson of the trip was to no overpack in future trips like this one… only with a couple of under layers should be enough for at least a 4 day trip.
We booked the three day tour with San Juan Mountain Guides. On Wednesday he arrived a little late, at around 10:30am but I guess that he encountered the same issue we did with the avalanche debris. We skin up Richmond basin, which was around a 4 hour tour up. We did found some sweet and fun corn snow. We also practice some transitioning into on steep slopes which I had never done and it was pretty intimidating.
It was also pretty fun to watch Michael run around uphill and downhill the entire day with those snowshoes while we were just making some corn harvesting.
We called it a day at around 4:00pm and made it back to the hut. We took turns getting in the hot tub and then waited for the supper dinner Eric made, which was rice and vegetables in some delicious peanut sauce. Eric’s food is so delicious that while you are skinning up, you are thinking of what are we having for dinner instead of what line you are gonna take on the way down.
On the second day we had set the goal of submitting Chicago Peak at around 13.800 feet, but we came short of it because of the steepness of the peak and the snow conditions. It was kinda frustrating, since we call it off just less than 200 Mts I would say. It was a pretty fun and regarding day. Had time to practice some more our kick turns and our corn skiing technique. Doc had left already to go cycling at Boulder, so it was the twins, Alex and I plus Kurt our guide. Again, today we called it a day at around 3:00pm and headed back to have some delicous dinner and the usual hot tub routine. This time we had steak for dinner. As for a fun fact, Eric purchases an entire “cow” and drives to the ranch from where he is purchasing it from every winter to know what conditions they raised the cattle in. Later he makes the cuts himself up at his cabin and then prepares it throughout the entire season.
For our last day, we were going back and forth to weather we were going to leave earlier than later in case we struggled on our way back to the cars because of the avalanche debris. We ended up waiting until 11:30am so the snow softened so we could easily ski our way down. While the way up took us around 6 hours, the way down only took approximately a couple hours and it was because of the twins blisters which were really really bad by that time.
Lastly, for the third and last day of our ski touring trip we again headed up to Chicago Peak, but instead of skiing the left side (skiers side) of the peak we skied the right side. Snow was beautiful and again we just had to called it off meters away from the peak. Since Kurt had to ski down the mountain and hike to his car, we ended up calling it a day some time earlier, like around 1-2pm. We wanted to build a kicker to have some fun, but blisters for ale and Tommy where to bad and Alex knee was giving him a hard time, so again, we went fo our usual routine of hot tub, dinner and some natural shrooms as well to kill time.
Drove back to Denver, booked a hotel near by the airport and had an amazing dinner at sasa sushi at downtown Denver. Definitely a must when in town. Will for sure go back with Jessilane and Alessandro eventually.
MiBiCi Adventures 