Backcountry Skiing Utah - Tushar Mtns (day 2)

Alright, we learned our lesson yesterday – you don’t need to skin four or five miles to find some good skiing here. Name of the game today was to find a ratio of skinning to skiing that is closer to 1:1.

Daily ritual of drying out our gear in the sun

Breakfast burritos...nice (photo by Rich)

We tackled a slope much closer to the RV that backs up to the property boundary of the ski resort. This ski resort, by the way, gets close to zero traffic. I think the four of us put down more tracks this week than everyone at the resort did. We skinned 30 minutes to get 800ft of vert…much better approach today!



At the top...you can see where we skied yesterday in the background

Rich, Sean, and Brian on the first pitch

We did two laps here and headed back to the RV for a late afternoon lunch, beers, and frisbee – we had the place to ourselves so it was the perfect place to hang out and relax. Then we went up the closed section of route 153 so Sean and I could try snowboarding and Rich and Brian could try skiing...we should probably stick to what we know. We switched gear back and built a kicker and hit some jumps before dinner.

Me trying to hit the jump switch...sad effort

Rich landing switch

Tushar Mtns – backside of Eagle Point

Getting there: I-70 turns into I-15, head south to exit 112 at Beaver, UT. Take route 160 west of the highway into town, turn left onto route 153. Drive past Eagle Point Ski Resort to the road closure just past Puffer Lake.

Route: We followed the shoulder of this slope from the road up to the Eagle Point border. This provides a good section of open slope which drops into aspen glades with a mix of conifers. You can easily get multiple laps in on this route in one day. You'll have to make a quick climb out of the basin back to road level but that only takes a few minutes.

Precautions: Standard avalanche safety warnings - see Tuesday's post for more local info. Make sure you stay off the ski resort property - it is private land.

Today's downhill is in yellow, RV parked on red