It is the summer of 2021. I’m half asleep, nestled into the small bow of a speedboat with good friends, while the boat courses through water so turquoise, with corals underneath so bright and teeming with life, that we might as well be in an advertisement for a Caribbean resort. We are in the Caribbean,…
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Recently, I had the opportunity to sit with the incredibly talented John Padilla: skier, graduate student, and filmmaker. John Padilla recently produced The Mountain in My Mind, a film that aims to break down the stigma around mental health by increasing conversation within the ski industry. After losing his 15-year-old younger brother to suicide in…
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If you could think back to your childhood room, what would you remember? Apart from the sneakers that smell like a dead animal, and the sock stuck under the corner of your bed for eternity. Can you recall what books you had on the shelf? Or the posters that covered your walls? Some people might…
The post Outdoor Role Models appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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The Wasatch and Salt Lake City are quite unique landscapes. City streets and tall buildings push right up to the edge of mountains. Trees, rivers, and creeks run between concrete mazes, and ski slopes rip through forests. Sometimes, it’s exciting when the natural and unnatural mingle together, like when a deer skips across the road…
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10,000-foot peaks are not easy to summit by any stretch of the imagination. In high altitudes, with the sun beating down on your neck, climbing two miles in vertical elevation is not a casual, relaxing way to spend summer vacation. However, for some people, casual and relaxing is no way to live; in the words…
The post The Power of Type Two Fun appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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“I travel in wild country a great deal, often alone, and my friends find this to be fatally eccentric, although they use the more polite term ‘stupid.’ They feel sorry for me because I miss the fun of camping in groups, same-sex or mixed. Perhaps I am too cranky to know any better. I go…
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“Better Is Out There.” -REI “Never Stop Exploring.” -The North Face Just some of the famous slogans from big outdoor companies that any nature enthusiast is sure to know. If you love the outdoors and spend any amount of time recreating in it, then I’m sure you’ve heard of the name brands: REI, Cotopaxi, The…
The post Christmas-time Consumer appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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Utah’s Bee Diversity The state of Utah is home to 4 different biomes: alpine, wetland, forest, and desert. Each distinct biome supports a host of unique animals and over 3,000 different native plants, to be exact. That’s a lot of plants that need pollination, which is why Utah is also home to 1,100 different species…
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Thursday, November 24th I felt nervous, nauseous, and in too deep. I still had half a mile till the summit, and my progress had dwindled to an embarrassingly low speed. There was no more solid ground, just polished ice and several inches of snow. With no boots, no crampons, and not nearly enough food, I…
The post A Thanksgiving Ascent of The Grandeur appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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Air goes in and out, blood goes round and round, and if any of that changes, it’s an emergency. This is the introduction to several abbreviated first-aid lectures I’ve heard. What follows is something about how if the red stuff starts leaking out we put the fluffy stuff on it to keep it in, if…
The post What’s In Their Purse? An Introduction to Wilderness First Aid Kits appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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Outdoor equipment is constantly evolving and improving. It is one of my favorite aspects of outdoor recreation. New and innovative strategies to make gear lighter, stronger, safer, and more durable are constantly being developed and released every year. For me, it’s exciting to walk around a local gear shop and admire how technology has improved…
The post 3D Printed Equipment: A New Trend in the Outdoor Industry? appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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Life is inherently risky, from rolling out of bed in the morning, to dawning shoes and a shirt, we cycle through (unlikely), but possible risks in our everyday existence. Death is a possibility that we face each time we sit in our cars and drive through bustling roadways and traffic. It is a guaranteed fact…
The post The Adventuresome Mother appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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In college we live day to day, week to week, moving through the world with minds full of algorithms, due dates, and weekend plans. By the time a break rolls around, we have no plans. What to do, what to do … binge Netflix? Start that looming craft project we claimed was going to be…
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Rain pelts the wet asphalt, creating puddles too big for the sewer drains to keep up with. Water runs like a small river down the road. Wind whips at tree branches and power lines, whirling in every direction and no direction all at once. Animals and humans take cover in whatever way they can. The…
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On November 19, I navigated my old Rav4 (Delilah) across the bumpy, half-frozen mud that led to Meadow Hot Springs in central Utah. Steam rose into the early winter air, framed by the ridgeline of the Pahvant Mountains to the east. My partner and I stripped down to our swimsuits, shrieking in the cold before…
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If you only look at a map of Western Utah, you would be hard-pressed to come away with any other conclusion than it is a land of essentially nothing. If you were talking about human development, the thought would be correct. But where there is a lack of humans, wildlife is allowed to thrive. Traveling…
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Knowing what knots to use, and when to use them, is what keeps us where we want to be, instead of broken on the ground. With a strong knowledge of these knots and hitches, one can do pretty much anything they’d need to, including building and operating rescue systems. There’s a certain cult of people…
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What a better way to experience Zion National Park than on a bike? On this U-Explore course, a group of students including myself signed up to spend the weekend biking in this southern Utah desert paradise. U-Explore courses offered by the University allow students to earn two untraditional credits through a weekend in the outdoors….
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It’s a Saturday morning in mid-February and snow conditions are absolutely dumping. You and your friends are frothing about the ski day you are about to have. That is until you reach the base of the canyon. There, you are met with a traffic jam that rivals Los Angeles on any given day. The red snake,…
The post What New Proposals for Little Cottonwood Canyon Mean for Residents and the Environment appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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If you know Utah, you know that rocks are important. They are quite literally, and figuratively, the foundation of this great state that we call home. While all nature lovers appreciate the stunning formations that rocks have formed to make up the famous landscape of Utah, no one quite knows rocks like climbers. The Climbing…
The post Holding Rocks – The Climbing Team at the University of Utah appeared first on Wasatch Magazine.
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