Going out to Greet Her

Skiing year round for two years at least once a month hasn't been easy in utah, I would have given it up in the middle of the summer this year if I didn't have the fate of meeting Micah up on the east glacier of Timpanogoos last september.  I haven't met anyone who enjoys skiing year round as much as him. I started for bragging rights, ego, and to prove who was the most hardcore skier of our crew, all of those motivations lose their steam, but not Micah's he just enjoys it.  It's because of his eternal pysch and tireless love of skiing on Timpanogoos that I managed to draft off his motivation to ski every month of this season (some critics don't count a snowboard descent as skiing year round, since I almost died I say f--k critics.) Watching the mountains lose their snow slowly throughout the summer to gain it back inch by inch in the fall is unique.  For a skier to never let skiing in mountains out of his or her mind teaches you something that you can only learn by experiencing.  After skiing the shittiest conditions in August, the glacier looked liked the surface of the moon after NASA luanched the rocket at it, I was willing to wait and hope for some early snow to make september better and so was Micah.  When I got the call from Micah in the last week of september saying "Our september snow prayers have been answered." I got excited for the possibility of schussing across some fresh new snow surfaces and decided to make a little trip out of it.  Packed up the winter tent and gear and started to make the all too familiar slog up aspen grove the eve before the storm was gonna hit. 

The man, the myth, the legend, no skis on his pack because he stashes them there all summer. 

Warm before the storm, thankful to be hiking at night, not too pysched on how heavy the pack is.

Waking up to fresh snow falling, get giddy about powder possibililities, thankful to have brought the tent, the old Hut isn't what it used to be. 
 Micah storm skiing on the last day of september, new surfy snow, between the dark grey old glacier snow, great vis.
Over the second night the wind picked up and the temps dropped sucking the moisture out of the snow provided some nice powder turns and of course utah bluebird. 

I stayed up a second night while Micah hiked down to work. He returned the next morning with Stefan.  After 12 hours plus of sleep I was eager to get out of the tent early. Remembering, that Stefan and Micah were hiking up I deployed some old school powder ethics for my first laps of October.

Stefan making his first powder turns of the year he didn't rust too much over the summer.

Finishing up in the foliage of Aspen grove.  The last half mile of the aspen grove hike sucked because it's paved, but the colors were nice.  Micah was tired after hiking up and down for two consecutive days . . . animal.  If you're a year round skier in Utah then you probably ski on the east glacier of Timp, getting there is easy take I-15 south from SLC exit 272 for Provo Canyon then take the Sundance exit drive up the canyon past Sundance ski area on your left is Aspen Grove parking area and trail head.  The glacier sits between the central and south summit towers and as far as I know, it is the only snow you can find year round. Everyone feels old winter creeping in: ominous text messages from Uncle Keith in Alaska proclaiming "Get ready it's coming," hearing Shreddy ranting around the bon fire, Jon Fay sussing Main Chute, false advertisements in ski movies. It's all exciting so get ready to greet her when she comes.