I just got back from an amazing trip to Southern Utah thanks to the First Ascent crew.  I have been down in the canyon lands a few times before to rock climb and hike around but never to ski. This is the first time in the last 30 years that Southern Utah has had enough snow to ski it’s rock forests and man is it good! Some people say it’s like skiing the spines in Haines but on Mars. It took us a long time of tiptoeing around the rim under the radar to find a place where we could enter the guarded terrain trap land. At first we struggled to find a safe place to ski because every thing around us was super exposed and all funneled into a tight angled gulley. We were all a little spooked looking at the canyon from a distance, but after a day of hunting for access and staying clear of the park patrollers we found our entrance and put our tracks down. The group consisted of Jamie Parks, Ash Christianson, Will Wissman, Mat Gershater, and myself. We dug some pits to analyze the profile of the snow, tried to nock off some cornices, put some ski cuts in and discovered that it was stable and ready to SEND. We also lucked out with the weather. The sky stayed clear and cold and we were able to ski what we wanted before the sun baked it. During the trip I learned a lot about selecting terrain, the type of snow conditions found in southern Utah, and how important it is to jump on a presented opportunity to do something for the first time.

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