Every time I go to Moab in the spring or fall I enjoy looking up at the La Sal mountains wondering what it would be like to ski up there looking down at the red desert below. This past Wednesday we had a little business bringing us back to Moab in the morning, and we decided to satisfy our curiosity in the afternoon. The “we” on this trip consisted of Anton Sponar, Tom Corson, Dave Rasmussen, and myself.
We pull in to the Gold Basin snow closure around 11:30 AM, pack up and start skinning by noon. Nothing like an alpine start!
We skin up the flat road for a while sweating in the Utah sun, but eventually find ourselves going up. The entire day will be a bit of a ski by the seat of our pants day as we’ve done little research. Thus, our first error of the day. We skin a little ways up the wrong side Gold Basin before realizing that we will have to lose some elevation to go where we are hoping.
Our mistake afforded us a good view of our objectives for the afternoon.
A quick ski down to the valley floor and we find ourselves on track skinning up towards treeline.
Breaking through treeline. Climbing in the afternoon can make for cool light.
Breaking through the mental barrier of treeline we get our first close up view of what we have been calling Little Tuk. In the spring time we would probably have climbed little Tuk, skied a line on it, and climbed back up Big Tuk, but with our time frame and snow conditions, that just isn’t in the cards at the moment.
I think we all kept looking back at Castle Valley in awe of what we are usually in Utah for.
Not the most fun ski conditions.
The weather is nice out today. Dave is in a Tshirt and so was I. Very little wind as well today, which from what I understand that is pretty abnormal.
Looking back towards Castle Valley and where we came from this morning.
Dave and Enso lead the charge at the moment.
We skin to within just a couple hundred vertical of the summit of Little Tuk, and then switch to booting. The snow is hardpack, mostly windblown. We are hoping for better snow on the way down.
After topping out on Lil Tuk, we skied our way down to the saddle and continued up towards the summit of Big Tuk.
The pictures on the way up were incredible with an upslope cloud system as a backdrop.
Myself and Anton approaching the summit of Big Tuk.
Anton above the saddle.
Final few feet.
Anton tops out on the summit. It's feeling like a longer day than it has been.
Summit shot with everyone enjoying the view.
We hurried to get our skis on and beat sunset back to the truck. In the end we made it just barely, but with very few pictures of the skiing. But here is on of Anton below the summit skiing very variable conditions.
We made it back to the truck as the last bit of orange was fading in the western sky. I think 6 hour days feel longer when you start so late, but either way we checked another curiosity off of our list and enjoyed it all the same.
janice January 29, 2011
Great as always. Love you