Winter Teases the Wasatch

Words by Kristie Giles
Photos by Charlie Carr
Video by Hennie Hermias Hendrik van Jaarsveld VII

The leaves are greener than ever here in Salt Lake City, and there are still flowers and shit, too. But the National Weather Service says the Wasatch is about to get pounded with wintery precipitation, and the National Weather Service doesn't lie. So if you live in Utah, you'd best go wax your skis and make the Alta webcams your homepage—if you didn't get that memo last weekend.

Friday night left several inches in the mountains and just enough in
Park City for a shit show of a Trailside session. The aforementioned massive gathering at the second most played-out handrail on earth resulted in all kinds of 270s out, switch ups, presses, royales, gnarly crashes (me) and, of course, that universal oh-my-God-it's-snowing-in-September stoke that's so hard to top.

At the same time, a bunch of kids were having the time of their lives on some random jibs at Alta. Word on the street reports the likes of jib stalls, bomb drops, mini booters, skate rails and sketchy boxes. "It was really, really fun…we had a bunch of stuff," Brent Neill explained, "and it was tight."

Brighton was the place to be on Sunday. A bunch of the sweet shit stashed up at the base of Snake Creek had been chained up, but a few rails and boxes were loose, and more got wiggled out. Highlights included Tom Wallisch's 270 to switch up to 270 pretzel on the Blindside box-C rail setup, Jeff Kiesel's 450 to split, Dave Euler's stripper slide, and an impressive display of boot skiing skill by Adam Battersby and others.

"Well I thought it was lame on the hike up, but that's 'cause I don't like hiking," Kiesel explained. "But then when I got there I was stoked as hell, and even with the snow wearing off the inruns and landings it was still dope."

"It's September!" said Neill. "I haven't found anyone who can remember a time when it snowed in September."