|| Morning to night, a Saturday in Salt Lake City. ||
Author: Austin
Letters and Lines
Powder in the Bear Trap
|| Skiing powder in the Bear Trap aspens in Big Cottonwood Canyon on a cold, cold powder day in January. ||
RIP
|| Ironic as it is to pay homage digitally, I’m a huge fan of this cover. ||
Riding the Burn
|| At Fisher Creek, miles of singletrack mountain bike trails weave in and out of these burned trees. Although the initial pedal is a churner, the ride back to the trailhead is an all-time affair. ||
Emma Meets Alta
|| Emma Bowl in Silver Fork on top and Alta, Utah from Grizzly Gulch on the bottom. Sunday was a day of ski touring with Re Wikstrom, Erme Catino, Anna Catino, and Joe Morabito. ||
Cold Diamond
|| Snow is always changing. Snowflakes fall from the sky pointy and perfect, and once on Earth they take on a more practical shape. Temperature, wind, and weight all work to melt, move, form and deform the snowpack. Individual flakes turn into multi-faceted grains; a little round over here and a little square over there. Over time, these grains lock together to form the surface that bears our weight when we take a walk or ski down the mountain. Here’s a small piece of the larger puzzle, an individual grain from the Utah snowpack.
This grain was photographed against a 3mm snow classification grid on a BCA snow card. I used a 100mm 2.8 macro lens, a Canon 580ex in slave mode, and a Canon 7D. ||
Orange Sherbert
|| 5 A.M. rolls around and I give the alarm a slap. Botch the coffee (too early), don’t forget the boots, load the truck, and… dang, did I forget my headlamp? Nope, it’s on my head. Meet up with Adam, Erme arrives, load Adam’s truck, and start driving. Hit the trailhead parking lot, slap the skis on the ground, shoot a headlamp photo that might work out, and start skinning. My lungs hurt, bad. Skin, skin, and skin more until morning breaks. Pause on the skin track and take in the view. Meet the guys at the top, shoot another photo, pack the camera, drop into my line, and enjoy. I blew right by that perfect patch of shooting light. Screw it, this is too much fun. Hollar, high five, and head for home. ||
The Way Back Home
|| Stanley, Idaho. ||
Salt Lake City Library
|| I shot this photo from the highest catwalk inside the Salt Lake City Public Library. Desks and sitting areas are hidden behind the square pillars to the right and the library proper is to the left. Every Sunday the ground level is packed with vendors selling crafts and customers milling about the vendors. Massive windows allow light to fill the building all day. After moving to Salt Lake City from Maine, I quickly discovered that this was one of my favorite buildings in the downtown area. ||