Surface Tension

Weak Legs, Weak Snow

wasatchsurf — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:45:57 +0000

Well Yesterday was one of the first “powder” days I’ve had this year. Good snow, good weather, and hundreds of slides to look at made the day fun.

Gallery of Slides

It was also the longest tour i’ve been on this year, not much vert 3000k+, but it ended up being about 8 miles of skinning. Today my legs hurt. As i’ve said in previous post my 2.5 months of sporadic exercise have really taken a toll on the fitness I gained from summer/fall running. Now that we have snow and some races on the horizon, I hope to get back into a training routine.

School and Play

wasatchsurf — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:40:29 +0000

I started school on Monday and dealt with that the first part of the week. Thursday I hooked up with Bucky and went touring? yes touring. We headed out for some exercise and to laugh at our 2012 winter conditions. The tour was fun, the riding sucked, and the weather nice. I’ve been wanting to check out some place new so I pitched the idea of doing a run/scramble out west somewhere. I wish I had checked out Doug’s report from Antelope before hand as that run looks like a lot of fun. We ended up going up the southern most high point of Stansbury Island. I wore running shoes, tights, and shorts thinking I was going to run up to the ridge and scramble from there. That would prove to be false. There is no trail system and the ground has a lot of loose rock so we ended up just hiking up to the South Ridge. Soon we were at the ridge and had great views from here up it was all 3rd class rock moves. The rock was pretty loose and we both moved awkwardly as both of us are out of practice on rock. The route was fun with a lot of room for variation. A few traverses onto the southeast aspect of the rock left us slightly exposed, but it felt really good to be in the sun. The crux of the route is a tall wall with some chimney systems going up. The rock was loose but solid enough, and the pitch steep enough to be exciting for a couple of novices like us. After pulling the moves up that short section we were on the summit ride. The summit ridge is long and made up of several summit points. We hopped, skipped, and jumped across the ridge to the northern ridge system and our way down. The way down was lame with a few inches of snow covering loose rock. It also put us a few drainages away from the car, but it saved us a lot of down climbing. Even though today wasn’t my big “get back into running” day that I had hoped, it was still a lot of fun. The mountain ranges to the west of salt lake are pretty amazing in a weird way. Desolate and lonely, but I really enjoy them.

rewind/play

wasatchsurf — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:56:55 +0000

2011 is over.
Highlights:
Spring Splitboarding Roadtrips
Trail Running
Running my first race, running a 25k, and finishing said race
Learning to Tenkara Fish
Grey Drakes on the Henry’s Fork
Camping in Goblin Valley

2012:
I want to run again and not get fat
I want to catch a big fish on a tenkara rod
I want to travel
I want to ride powder
I want to get a photo published
I want to climb more
I want to be a positive person and influence the people around me to have a positive outlook, we got that PMA

Photo Highlights. I won’t repost photos already on the blog so here are some from the last few months/weeks of 2011.

January Brown Trout

wasatchsurf — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:59:51 +0000

January Brown Trout, a photo by wasatch surf on Flickr.

50 degree temps aren’t good for snow riding. So I headed up to a small stream northeast of salt lake. No snow made the walking easy and the low water made it easy to find fish, however they were super spooky. I missed several fished but still managed to land a few.

December 2011

wasatchsurf — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:08:30 +0000

Scarpa F1

wasatchsurf — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:17:39 +0000

I bought some new boots. They didn’t work out for me. Buy them.

from craigslist-

I purchased these boots about a month ago. I have taken them out 3 times and they just aren’t the right size for me. I purchased new for $350.00 and put Sole footbeds in them. The footbeds retail for $45-50. I would like to sell these for $380.00 and i’m pretty firm on the price. The boots are very lightly used, less than 5k vert on them. I love the boots and the touring function. Let my sizing mistake be your gain. Please respond via email or call/text 208.351.0318. I work somewhat weird hours so if I don’t answer just leave a message and i will get back with you.

Contrast

wasatchsurf — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:16:49 +0000

Contrast, a photo by wasatch surf on Flickr.

Night Shred

wasatchsurf — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:15:21 +0000

Night Shred, a photo by wasatch surf on Flickr.

Politics

wasatchsurf — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 07:08:49 +0000

For those that don’t know, Canyons ski resort is trying to build a tram connecting to solitude ski resort. I could go on and on about the evils of this but it has been covered at these websites:
http://straightchuter.com/2011/09/the-canyons-tram-and-ted-wilson/#more-4918
http://saveourcanyons.org
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=17425502
http://splitboard.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=11759&start=65

moral of the story if one lift goes trans-canyon the whole wasatch is screwed. also the politics are disgusting, the resorts have effectively kissed enough political ass to have two republican politicians in the area create a screwball “wasatch recreation enhancement act” that will sell 30 acres of public federal forest land to the private Talisker corporation who is behind the proposed tram. THIS IS NOT OKAY. besides the environmental issue there is a core ethics issue here. 94% of the wasatch front opposes ski resort expansion however the resorts and politicians involved are taking this out of the public eye and trying to pass the bill behind closed doors. no public hearings, no public input, no public respect. THIS IS NOT HOW OUR REPRESENTATIVES SHOULD BE ACTING. what does that say about Utah as a state? What does it say about America as country. please click the link below and let congress know that this type of behavior is not okay.

http://www.change.org/petitions/us-congress-stop-the-sale-of-forest-service-land-to-ski-area-developers

Thanks!

Prints now available!!!

wasatchsurf — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:10:05 +0000

I have made some prints available for purchase over on my professional website http://danzgates.zenfolio.com/

to celebrate this I am offering a holiday gift ornament http://danzgates.zenfolio.com/p672228150
the ornament is a beautiful shot of the Teton’s take in September of this year. The ornament size is 3.75×3.75″ and makes a wonderful gift for yourself, friends, or family! I really appreciate you taking the time to check out the site and making any purchases as that will make my holiday’s a little brighter

ps-for readers of my blog I am offering a 15% off coupon for the ornament. just type “happyxmas” in the coupon code field to receive the discount.