A cold ski trip in Logan Canyon, Steam Mill Peak offers an expansive view and great skiing.
- January 13-17, 2007
- Team: Bill & Suki, Lew & Nicole, John
- Summits: Steam Mill Peak 9282'
- About 3 miles from the trailhead at 6600' to the yurt at 8170'
Note: click images to see a larger version in a new window
After a long drive down from Boise, we finally got to the trailhead at about 2PM. This trailhead is located about 25 miles up Logan Canyon from Logan, Utah. Steam Mill Peak is marked with an arrow. |
 |
The first mile is on a popular snowmobile route. It is pretty flat, following a stream up the flat valley floor. |
 |
| Then you turn into Hell's Kitchen Canyon, which we have renamed "Cold-Ass Canyon." During our stay we had several chances to ski back up the canyon, and on each it had a strong head wind that made it seem brutal Especially since most of the time the temperature was around 0°F. |  |
Near the top of the canyon, but not on top of the ridge (?), there is a small yurt. The literature proclaims "occupancy for six." The fine print reads "beds for four." The first night there were only four of us, as Nicole wasn't scheduled to arrive until the next day. We fired up the stove and tried to warm our bones from the chilling climb. That night it hit about 10 degrees below. |
 |
The next day was sunny and clear. We wanted to see the area, so we climbed the ridge behind the yurt and traversed across several false summits to the top of Steam Mill Peak. We had to pull our skis off for the last 6 feet. Then we skied back to the bottom of Cold-Ass canyon, and Lew skied out to greet Nicole, making our group 5. That night it hit a solid -15°. We were a little slow getting going the next morning. |
 |
The rest of the trip consisted of Lefts and Rights during the day, then gourmet dinners and a little vino in the evenings. The snow conditions were generally pretty fun, but there was a crust layer where the sun had been on it. So when we could, we skied the trees, or the border of the trees. |
 |
Here Bill heads back into the shade for some soft stuff. |
 |
Suki wasn't far behind. We skied about 4000' each day, and had hot lunches in the yurt. |
 |
We did ski in the sun, and all of us got s bit of a suntan. Here Lew works the terrain with style. You'll notice that even though he's busting crust, there was a couple of inches of fluff on top. We found this combo snow to be challenging, but fun. Great trip. More photos will be added when our group swaps pictures in a few days. |
 |
This map shows the area. The red dot is the approximate location of the yurt. Click on the map to see a larger version. On that version, the blue is uptrack and the red is descents. |
 |
|
|
