it’s a pretty, great state

No new snow for 10 days. Maybe more. But we’re getting cabin fever, and sometimes the backcountry is just a waaaaay better place to exercise than the gym. Well, not sometimes, really always, but what I’m saying is, even when the backcountry isn’t freshies, it’s still good, and even when it’s “only” good, it’s waaaaay better than the gym.

Anyway.

Me n Tyler n Jon met at Little Cottonwood parking lot at 5:30 (yes, AM), quickly rejected booting up Coalpit #4, and decided to go to the White Pine trailhead, just down canyon from Snowbird, and head to the Pink Pine Ridge, which divides Red and White Pine Canyons (Get it? White Pine PLUS Red Pine gives you a PINK ridge–how clever is that?), and has a tasty (whoops, I just broke my own “no using the word tasty to describe anything but cookies rule) chute at the top of the ridge.

We expected manky and stanky snow. Turns out, it was only manky.

Climbing Pink Pine (well, HERE we’re resting, but you get the idea):

Toward the top, the going gets a bit steep, and when the snow is thin, booting is better than skinning:

Tyler, with the GQ shot:

I was wrong before, THIS is the GQ shot:

Jon posted a couple short clips to YouTube of the booting:

And another, in case one video of us walking slowly uphill isn’t enough to satisfy your appetite for videos of us walking uphill slowly:

Either the deer have been at that tree, or it’s a bad place to be in a thunderstorm:

Jon volunteers to do a “stability test”:

Tyler decides it’s safe:

Really Jon? All black?

Not too bad for 10 days of  no snow:

The snow machine is sposed to turn back on today. Then it won’t suck so much to get out (sarcasm alert).