Winter Hike in September

What makes this a winter hike? I don't have to carry water for the dogs. Today Skadi didn't even look at the water I gave her on top of Jupiter Peak and Loki took a sip only because I told him to.
So we went to Jupiter to explore the snow conditions and also take a few shots into Big Cotonwood and get a sense of where they are at with their snow cover.
Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

First glimt of Jupiter from top of Payday.

Clayton Peak and 10420 from Jupiter ridge line.

Mt Woolverine and Woolverine Bowl from Jupiter summit.

Mt Raymond from Jupiter

Sampson, Comstock and Hawkeye.

Jupiter ski patrol hut.

Jupiter P-Zone

Brock has moved in to PC from Michigan two weeks or so
ago and he is looking to make this place his permanent
residence. I had the honor of guiding him on his first
oxygen-less yet successfull summit bid on
Jupiter Peak today. Great job Brock!

Windy Ridge in the Uintas.

First Snow of the 2016/17 Season!

The forecast guarantueed it and we got it! These are pictures taken from Payday at the Park City resort (Click to enlarge):

Jupiter with his head in the clouds.

McConkey's.

The Uintas.

Lewis Peak (far right at about 9,200).

 See Suicide chute. Another 3 - 4 of these storms
and that becomes skiable...

This is clearly off topic today but if you checkout the
largest lower left branch, you can see that it is
"growing two pines"...

...and here is a close-up of the two pines with the right
hand side one more clearly visible than the other.

OK, you can start hyperventilating now...

...this is the closest thing you'll get to a guarantee! This is the NOAA forecast at 9,400 and they are saying 1 - 3 inches tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night, then 1/2 an inch on Saturday. That's a total of 3.5 - 9.5 inches: just sayin! And we all know that snow in the sky beats pie in the sky anyday. Check it out (click to enlarge):

It's time to get excited!

OK so last time was a bit of a let down. However that time it did just say "Slight Chance"... Today's forecast says "Snow Showers Likely". There is now a real chance that this is not just a first snow forecast, this could very well be our first snow. Period! That will be a great relief from this Indian summer we are going through today and seemingly tomorrow.

I am letting this one bleed over into the right nav pane so it's readable and you can still click to enlarge:

Skis are getting shorter…

…is something you hear all the time and more often than not people talk about it as a very recent development. It is true that skis are getting shorter. What is not true is that it’s a recent development. As I was browsing in my collection of Swedish annual ski yearbooks I stumbled into what may well be the first public ski manufacturing statistics. The yearbook is: “På Skidor Årsskrift 1927” which translates to: On Skis Yearbook 1927. In looking at below pictures another piece of Swedish you will benefit from is to know that “Tillverkningsår” means year of fabrication. These are numbers emanating from the largest ski manufacturer in Sweden at the time: Bröderna Sandström Skidfabrik (The Sandström Brothers Ski Plant). That company was up in 110,000 pairs of skis per year in the late 20s making it an unthinkable force for the day.

Below are scans of the relevant parts but first I have got to show you the cover page of the yearbook as it feature my favorite ski inventors, the reindeer herding Sámis (formerly known as Lapps). On the cover this Sámi is skijoring a reindeer, simply too perfect to pass up!

Here is a Sámi skijoring a reindeer. He is in
traditional dress with Sámi skis.

f. stands for feet and if you read the "key" in the text above
you're good to go!

The Sandström Brothers' advert on the
back cover of the 1927 yearbook.

First Snow of the 2016/2017 Season?

Here is our first snow forecast for the 2016/2017 Season! This is the NOAA forecast for 2 Miles ENE Brighton UT 40.61°N 111.53°W at an Elevation of 9406 ft. That's what we refer to as this blog's "mountain forecast"... The forecast below is for Park City at 9,400' and the Alta at 9,400 forecast for tomorrow is the exact same, so this is a Wasatch wide thing (at least central Wasatch).

Do take a moment to really enjoy this screenshot (click to enlarge):

Lightning Kills Entire Reindeer Herd in Norway

A severe (electrical?) storm killed over 300 wild reindeer at the Hardangervidda, the largest high mountain plateau in northern Europe and a national park.
The national park which is the largest in Norway with wild reindeer populations, spans 3,000+ square miles and counts in excess of 10,000 wild reindeer.

The Norwegian Environment Agency has released below images of reindeer that seemingly fell over where they stood. The herd included 70 calves. It is likely that, in the severe storm, they huddled together which could explain why they all perished.
This is quite the freak accident as Norway has a very low frequency of lightning strikes.

The last picture show Eyjafjallajokul in Iceland which is on a similar latitude and climate as Norway. You can see the lightning streak across the sky as lava flows from the volcano in 2010. Cleary nothing to be trifled with...

Here are the pictures (click to enlarge):

A sad sight...

...the Norwegian forest service typically will let them decompose
where they fell as this is a nature preserve.

Eyjafjallajokul, Iceland in 2010.