Pinedale Canyon

Today's adventure was to ski Pinedale Canyon. Neil was our guide. Pinedale is a 30-45 minute traverse/side-step/bootpack from the resort boundaries. To get there, we first traversed over the top of Rock Springs to Green River and then after a short ski, we bootpacked to the top of Four Pines. From Four Pines, we traversed a little further to get to the top of Pinedale. It is amazing how easily you can get to whole new areas within a short hike of the resort.

This is an image of a JHMR backcountry map I bought the other day...I dug it up online, so the quality is pretty bad, but you get the idea. The yellow dotted line is the resort boundary. Pinedale Canyon is two valleys to the left of the boundary. You might be able to make out the name on the map.


Today's crew was myself, Neil, Owen (they are brothers), Phil, Jacki, and Julie (a friend of Neil).

[ Julie & Jacki making the traverse to Green River ]

[ Top of Four Pines ]

[ Phil reaching the top ]

[ Julie, Neil - Traversing to the top of Pinedale ]

[ Jacki posing while "scoping her line" ]

It was exciting to get out and explore a new area with new terrain. Getting out to the top of the canyon was an adventure. Skiing down was another story and made me pretty mad by the end. Mentally I wanted to charge on my skis, but physically my body wasn't letting me. I double-ejected out of my skis twice and lost a single ski once. It just wasn't my day.

[ Phil ]

[ Owen ]

[ Owen ]

Both of my knees are sore and my right knee hurts from one of the tumbles, my right ankle aches and my left ankle doesn't feel good either. My left arm is also pretty sore. I'm taking a few days to hang low and recover. Hopefully snow continues to fall and things will soften up by the time I get back out there.

[ The icicles on our roof look pretty cool ]