Yesterday the local news had this story about a guy who took an uncontrolled slide down a chute in Maybird Gulch in Little Cottonwood Canyon outside of Salt Lake City. The slide took him over some rocks and he was lucky to survive — the video accompanying the story is terrifying. Video Courtesy of KSL.com…

With some travel coming up and hot weather rapidly eroding our epic snowpack, I decided to sneak in a quick snow climb on July 1. Since I couldn’t convince anyone else to go along, I made a conservative choice and climbed Red Baldy, whose northwest slopes present one of the easier and safer routes found…

Incredible to see so much snow at the end of June; these pictures show what Lake Blanche (at 8900′) more commonly looks like on Memorial Day. [nggallery id=44]

Near my house the other day. [nggallery id=43]

Southern Utah is famous for its canyons and arches. Utah’s West Desert, on the other hand, is not as well-known and is perhaps not as easy to appreciate. It encompasses a large area, containing entire mountain ranges that are virtually unknown (ever heard of the Confusion Range or the Wah Wahs?). It is also very…

The boys had no school today, so I took them and a friend to Antelope Island, one of the more accessible islands in the Great Salt Lake. Despite the odd weather (it snowed, got sunny, and snowed again about eleven times during the day) we had a fun trip. I brought my backpacking stove and…

Family trip to Southern Utah. [nggallery id=36]

Bill and I had already made two attempts to backpack into the Fins area, which is part of Ernie’s Country in the Maze District of Canyonlands NP. Spring 2010 was abnormally snowy and Fall 2010 featured torrential rains, both times making roads impassable. This time — Spring 2011 — the weather cooperated. Also it was…

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