Utah Adventure Journal

They call it the Red Snake. This crimson serpent is the dread of all skiers and snowboarders in Little Cottonwood Canyon, and has a cruel tendency of only emerging on epic days when perfect Utah snow falls on the Wasatch. Overnight storms bring powder hounds to the canyon bottom in droves, yet what they seek […]

  The hour is growing late and a small group of backcountry skiers are facing some critical decisions.  Their companion has just sustained a fall and appears to have a broken leg.  It’s clear that he will not be able to negotiate the difficult terrain ahead and they’re deep in a drainage that has seen […]

When you roll off your last ski run and into a hot-tub soak, when the chairlifts come to their quiet halts, when sunset leaves behind a black night: magic happens. Come every evening at each of Utah’s fourteen ski resorts, tiny armies of men and a few women climb into massive, machinated beasts of mountain […]

Now that backcountry skiing has tickled the consciousness of mainstream skiers, all sorts of destinations have become normal fare for the average hardcore skier. From the Green Mountains of Vermont to the Washington’s Cascade Range, Wyoming’s Tetons, the Wasatch of Utah, or California’s Sierra Nevada, the tracks of backcountry skiers are plainly visible where there […]

  I used to believe that stoicism was the higher virtue, that when heading to the desert, I needed to prove I could survive with basically nothing. Wanting to be comfortable made me weak, a liability; a girl.  After years of camping and backpacking, I know I can “go light,” I know I can make […]

Guy Cotter is the director of New Zealand based guide service Adventure Consultants. A 30 year veteran of  leading mountaineering expeditions and climbing all over the globe, Guy has climbed the ‘Seven Summits’ including 4 climbs to the top of Mt. Everest. Fourteen years after his first Everest summit climb he completed his Seven Summits […]

  San Juan County It takes a long time to find a mammoth, especially if it’s been buried beneath tamarisk, oakbrush, and Russian olive bushes. I’d heard rumors about a mammoth in San Juan County, but a beast from the Pleistocene is hard to locate and even harder to prove. Now thanks to the BLM, […]

Beer consumption in a frozen ski resort parking lot creates a wild opening from which springs a plethora of mountain-themed debates. Combine an alpine view, camp chairs, and a cooler packed with suds, and you’ve got a worthy setting for tailgate meditation. Such was the case on a recent trip to Alta, where post-skiing brews […]