A few weeks ago, Morgan and I joined our good friends Leah, Emma, and Richard on a quick lap up to Peak 10420, in the Guardsman Pass area. It was our first time skiing in the backcountry this season, and I approached it with nervous excitement. I've never been the fastest person on the skintrack, and my downhill ability on featherweight toothpicks is a far cry from what I can manage in the resort. That lack of confidence, combined with the nearly month-long high pressure system we were experiencing all added up to fair amount of anxiety around conditions.

Still, we awoke eagerly begrudgingly at 6:30 for our 7am meetup time at the Big Cottonwood Park n Ride. After the now-familiar drive up canyon, we had our skins and and we were moving by 8am.

The obvious highlight of the hike up was these pair of grouses we passed on the way up, who could not have cared less as we moseyed by a couple feet beside them.

Besides the cool birds, it was fun to see Morgan crushing uphill (as always), stopping at the saddle where Richard got married earlier last year, and almost sliding off the ridge when I biffed a particularly steep kick turn. Luckily, Leah appeared behind me as I was finding my footing, and truthfully if I didn't know she was behind me to stop the slide, I might still be sitting there arresting a fall with my ski pole. Overall, we were moving well and by 9:30 we'd made work of the skin track and were basking in the morning sun at our transition point. 

There was a brief moment of panic when Leah's ski torpedoed down the hillside into a cluster of trees below us, but all was well. She hoked down the slope and came skinning back up not too long after. Personally, I think she just wanted the extra mileage. It didn't click for me until she was halfway back up that "extra milage" that it called for ascending a shaded north-facing slope. Which, in retrospect, was an obvious slide path. Objectively, the stakes were low. Richard was poised at the top of the bowl in case anything did happen, and there hadn't been an avalanche observed in weeks at this point. Still, I'd like to be better at recognizing obvious hazards like that in the moment, not five minutes after the fact. That's what low danger days are for though.

After that little side quest, we locked in our heels and headed back to down. We dropped off the false summit of Ten-four-twenty and skied Promise Land, a tree run that takes you back down to the road. Watching our friends dance through the trees is a friendly reminder that I have so much room for improvement. I don't often ski soft snow in the backcountry, so adapting to skiing in the powder instead of on top was a little challenging for me. Still, the pillow-y (three-week-old?) snow in the trees off the top of the peak was soft and forgiving.  We avoided steep slopes, and I enjoyed slashing (and side-slipping) through the trees back down to the Guardsman road. We found a few stashes of fresh powder and even a low-angle meadow that offered some glorious turns.

Morgan's description of the descent goes as follows:

You can say I fell on my butt on every single turn. Looking down the slope really terrified me, but skiing in the trees was fun, since I didn't feel like I was going to catapult down the hill. It was the second best snow I've ever skied on.

I was really proud of Morgan. Our last time skiing together in the backcountry left us both a bit disheartened. Turns out, handful of days in the resort and a gang of supportive friends (and zero time constraints) is all it took for a similar setup to yield a very positive outcome.

Back at the Guardsman Pass road, we said our goodbyes—Emma and Leah were hungry for another lap and Richard had to make it back to town for an afternoon skin up Millcreek Canyon. Morgan and I stuck around and did some Beacon 101 training. The cold temps that had my fingertips stinging all morning became a boon to our simulated rescue scenario. I could bury my pack (camera and all) without worrying that the melting snow would seep in and soak my things. After going through the basics of a beacon search, we packed up and headed back home, stopping only for the obligatory perusal of skis and jackets at the Gear Room.