A lot of great skiing to close out the season in the Wasatch. Mostly awesome jump sessions..
Skier: Rob Aseltine
Photo: Noah Wetzel
Thayne, Noah, Willie, LP and friends end of season…
Carston Oliver massive moto gap
Rob 3 tickling some blunt
Thayne – Rode 7 Mute 1st hit with a bummed knee.. Crazy guy.
Jordi shredding Alta.
Thayne last day at Alta. Shot using the Zeal POV Goggle
Ethan Oxman from Jackson getting amongst it at the bird.
Willie and Thayne.
Noah Wetzel
As the season was winding down there were a couple days I sure want to note. One in particular was a day that started off with some sunny pow with friends and ended up with a solo stormy sketch hike that turned into one of those gratifying moments I’ll never forget. With laps in between at Brighton I was able to hit Clayton’s, Pioneer and Sunset Peaks all in a day.
Clayton’s was sunny. Pioneer an hour later was a blizzard. And then I dropped, The sun sneaked through and I got my last glory turns for the year. Oh I forgot to mention the baby moose. He’s in the video…
Me scoping the zone
Photo: Dimitri Littig
Testing out the new Zeal Slate Goggles. Dig em.
Sending in Brighton backcountry.
Photo: Jake Deboard
Earlier this winter I was contacted by a good friend to help with a project for Ski Utah. The plan was to shoot some commercials for their Internet advertising and the set date was the first week of April. April can be hit or miss for good snow especially if you want to show the “best snow on earth” to the rest of the global Internet community.
The first day we started shooting we got a few inches of snow in the mountains were pretty socked in. The next day it rained. Odds of getting decent shots were pretty dismal. We only had a few more days to shoot all of these resorts in the Ogden, Park City and Cottonwood Canyons. Yet there was a gleam of hope with a few inches of snow predicted for the next few days. Forecasts had been between 3 to 6 inches and up to 20. We didn’t know what to expect but we just kept our fingers crossed.
We got the snow and we got the shots. Thank you Utah!
And thank you to these individuals who helped make it all happen.
Tommy Joyce
Kalen Thorien
Ski Utah
Active Junky
backies for the camera!
December 2012 proved to be a great month to start the winter in terms of snowfall. With 196 inches of snow fallen at Alta before January 1st, things appeared just about on par with yet another epic Utah winter. Unfortunately Ullr had other plans from then on out. We really didn’t see much in terms of storm cycles for quite some time. 3 to 6 inch storms were pretty much the norm for January and February. What a tease…
It has been a fairly calm storm day on February 22. Enough new snow for fun conditions but still not a serious powder day. Friends and cohorts were inside downing pints of beer and munching on on slices of pepperoni when things started to turn furious outside the window. The wind picked up in the snow started coming. I dialed in a few more laps on the Wildcat chair with my friend Sam from New Zealand as we decided we would let the traffic make its way down the canyon.
Après-ski then began.
This would be the après-ski I would never forget. Generally traffic dies down by 5 or 6 PM and it’s smooth sailing back to the valley. We had crushed about three pitchers by 8 o’clock and cars still hadn’t left the parking lot. It was really snowing. The visibility must have been 20 or 30 feet. There was glow outside in the darkness from the red lights lined up trying to exit the lot. Faces were plastered against the window trying to discern whether or not the cars were actually moving. One group of my friends actually went into their car for an hour, turned it on, never left the lot and decided to come back in and drink some more beer. Unfortunately others had the same plan and even the kitchen ran out of food, it was down to PBJ’s and french fries. This is really great fuel for the following day which turned to be one of the best pow days I’ve ever had Alta. We finally left and made it home by 11 PM so rest wasn’t a concern for the shred to come.
When I quit my job this winter it turns out a friend of mine named Kyle also had some free time on his hands. Kyle has done a bunch of film work in the past so we teamed up together to shoot a bunch of features after a storm in early February. What was originally supposed to be just a small pillow line shoot Alongside the road in big Cottonwood turned out to be a full day of event slaying some of the most prominent features I have been eyeing over the last few years.
The larger hit which consisted of a carving right hundred foot in run, a short take off to a 20 foot drop over some scraggly bushes to completely flat got the best of me. I came to my feet but just didn’t have the speed to power through the flat deep landing. After two failed attempts my shins felt nearly broken in my boot so I called it. Which was a good idea because I had pretty much the worst shin-bang for almost two weeks following.
In the end, these roadside features and this shoot was one of my favorite days of the season. Thanks Kyle!
My number one mission this season was to go outside the gates and ski the backcountry. I have spent so much time inbounds at Brighton and Alta ski resorts in Utah but never really ventured to the great peaks in between. Areas like the Wolverine cirque, Mount Superior and Rocky Point are all easy access classics and within an hour or two hike from the parking lot. These short adventures are nothing new to my friends in Utah but hopefully for everyone else this shows how great it is to have such a paradise in your backyard.
After the Snowfall 