So, it’s been two months since I last posted in the blog. A lot has happened in these months. I spent a week in China, had some pressing projects at work, had a great time over the holidays with family, celebrated a wedding and a passing, and then the storms began pounding the state. I think I mentioned several posts back that I don’t photograph as much in winter. It’s my busiest time at work and I find it harder to access the mountains this time of the year. We’ve had a lot of storms pass through the state in the last two weeks. Luckily, they’ve come off the Pacific and not out of the Gulf of Alaska. That means they’ve been warmer than usual. Here in Utah Valley, we’ve had most of the precipitation fall as rain. The mountains have received a heavy load of snow, and the avalanche danger is high.

Even though I don’t shoot as much these days, I still watch my favorite YouTube photographers and dream of warmer weather. Lately I’ve been prepping photos for a local museum photo competition. I’ll be submitting my entries in two weeks. I’ll write about that later. I’ve been getting an itch to be outdoors more and more, and an even bigger itch to make photographs. Last week I wanted to find ice formations on a local stream so I hiked along the American Fork River and shot a few nice compositions.

Because we had so much rain and snow this past week, I decided it was time to pull out the snowshoes and head up into the mountains. Yesterday, I drove to the Aspen Grove Trailhead above Sundance Ski Resort on the Alpine Loop around Mt. Timpanogos. The trailhead is the end of the plowed road. With four feet of fresh snow on the road, I put on the snowshoes and began my walk. On the way, I passed a sheriff deputy who was there to warn visitors of the extremely high avalanche dangers that currently exist. There are several active avy chutes in that area. Not too many years ago, several snowboarders triggered a slide there and lost their lives. Hiking up the road however, is a safer route into the area. I didn’t feel a strong desire to get off the road since this was my first snowshoe of the year. The hike uphill kicked my butt. I went about two miles on a steady climb before turning around. I overheated the entire way. I wore my heavy coat instead of dressing in multiple thinner layers. I wasn’t able to regulate my heat except to stop and shoot, at which time I took off the backpack, peeled of my coat, and shot in my tee shirt until my temperature regulated and I started off again uphill. 

At my first stop on the climb, I was jostling my backpack around, lost my balance and fell over. Because the snow was so deep and unpacked, I couldn’t push against anything to get back up. My hiking poles were useless because they just sank in the snow down to four feet. Snowshoes can be a bit awkward to begin with, but add to that a heavy camera backpack and soft snow that offers no resistance, and it was a five-minute ordeal to get back onto my feet. Lesson learned, I was much more careful to keep my balance.

It didn’t take long before I was once again in love and at home in the mountains. It was incredibly beautiful. I only saw two other snowshoers on my trek and so most of the time I was alone. It was a much-needed time to absorb the goodness of the mountains and the fresh air. We have another storm due in tomorrow morning. Since it is a holiday, I hope to get the wife out with me on another snowshoe walk later in the day after the storm breaks.