About
It starts in October.
Not January. Not the first day on snow. October: when the light drops its angle and something in me starts paying attention to the sky.
Paul Hudson. Cardiff Fork, Big Cottonwood Canyon
I built the thing I couldn't buy.
I've skied the Wasatch Backcountry for years. Long enough to know that my year doesn't start in January. It starts in the fall, weeks before the first winter storm.
When the leaves turn, I drive up the canyons through the aspens and maples—the whole range gone red and yellow. I go just to see it, just to be in it. Nothing to do with skiing yet. Skiing is still weeks out, but those drives are how I know the year is turning back toward the thing I wait all summer for.
No calendar I ever owned knew enough about my passion to know the difference. December and August filled the same space, as if one weren't the whole point and the other the “off-season.”
So, I made the thing that matches the way I feel the year. I started with the Wasatch because the Wasatch inspired the idea. I know its terrain, its moods, and its people. I made this for me first, but I thought others who share that passion might feel the same.