Melissa Fields

If you grew up in the United States, chances are you participated in organized sports sometime during your childhood. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, just over 60 percent of all American kids aged 7 to 18 suit up to play or perform as part of a team at least once a week. As we get older, however, life—work, kids, etc.—tends to get in the way, leading most adults to abandon their passion for team play in favor of hitting the gym. And since we all know how uninspiring that can be, it’s no wonder that, also according to the CDC, only about 28% of Americans get the weekly recommended 150 minutes of aerobic exercise and two muscle-strengthening sessions per week. What’s more, many Americans suffer from loneliness, including a whopping 79 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds, a condition estimated to have the same negative impacts on life span as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.

Now the good news: an antidote to a sedentary, lonely life may be as simple as signing up for a weekly kickball league. The physical benefits of team sports are obvious: the sprints, bursts of intense action, changes in direction and acceleration and muscle loading provide an efficient combo of aerobic, endurance, and resistance training. But as Dave “Beehive Dave” Marquardt, owner and founder of Beehive Sports & Social Club, has observed, the mental health benefits offered by team play may be even greater. “I can’t tell you how many times someone in one of our leagues told me that they had recently moved to Utah, couldn’t make friends and were considering moving away until they joined one of our leagues,” he says. “Playing an adult sport is a great way to get outside and get some exercise, but the people who play in our leagues love it for what it does for their mental health.”

For Ben Smith, a Salt Lake City high school teacher and longtime rec league hockey player, the physical benefits he’s reaped from getting on the ice regularly are certainly a plus, but it’s the community he’s built through his rec league that’s kept him at it for the past 25 years. “I think the way team sports are different from exercising on your own is that you are focused on doing your best for the whole group, not just yourself,” Smith says. “My hockey community has been a huge support for me as I have navigated changes in my life. It’s also brought me closer to people whose lives are vastly different than mine in a way that few other community connections can.”

Marquardt, a Utah native, launched what would become Beehive Sports soon after moving back to Salt Lake City 15 years ago. “I wanted to reconnect with my high school friends and so that summer I started a kickball league,” he says. “We had so much fun that we decided to start a flag football league in the fall.” Now, Beehive Sports & Social Club’s spring, summer and fall leagues include basketball, softball, soccer, sand volleyball, cornhole and pickleball, as well as kickball (“Our most popular league, by a wide margin,” Marquardt says) and flag football. In the winter, Beehive Sports’ leagues go inside with volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, futsal (indoor soccer), darts and billiards.

Beehive Sports welcomes whole teams and single players alike and runs play on pitches from Murray to North Salt Lake. Because the teams often meet up at local bars after games, the minimum age to join a team is 21. There’s no age cap, but most players range in age from mid-20s to mid-40s. Last year, 15,000 people played in Beehive Sports’ leagues, all of which are made up of co-ed or women-only teams. “All-male teams tend to bring out the worst parts of sports,” Marquardt says. “The women temper the men on co-ed teams, and everyone has a good time.”

Adult Rec Leagues

Beehive Sports is far from the only adult rec league in Utah. Other resources include:

• Salt Lake County Parks & Rec, ultimate frisbee, pickleball, indoor volleyball, racquetball and hockey.
• Sport City, indoor adult soccer and volleyball in Draper.
• Stonewall Sports, LGBTQIA + Allies-friendly bowling, pickleball, kickball, and dodgeball.
• Utah Adult Soccer, men’s and women’s teams play in Salt Lake City, Herriman, Sandy and Park City.
• Park City Recreation, volleyball, softball, kickball and cornhole leagues.

Alt sports

Maybe you never took to “sportsball” and the idea of kicking, bumping, throwing or hitting one around with a bunch of strangers seems terrifying. Rest assured that no experience is required to join a rec league (versus a competitive league). But to give you a little background before you hit the field, the following is a brief rule rundown of the most common rec league sports.

• Kickball: Rules almost exactly mimic baseball or softball, except players kick a big, friendly rubber ball rolling on the ground to them by the pitcher versus hitting one that’s airborne with a bat.
• Cornhole: Two teams, each with one or two players, take turns throwing bags at a board. The goal is to score points by getting bags through the hole or onto the board.
• Flag football: Same rules as football, but no contact is allowed. Instead, players wear flags that hang along their sides by a belt. To “tackle” a player in possession of the ball, the opposing team needs to pull one or both of their flags off.
• Ultimate Frisbee: The object of this fun, non-contact sport is to pass the frisbee to your teammates to score goals. The person with the frisbee is not allowed to run, just pass.

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SLCSAR was established in 1957 and, under the direction of the Salt Lake County Sheriff, is responsible for all search and rescue missions in Salt Lake County. The team’s service area covers the county’s entire 807-square-mile area—spanning roughly from Farmington Bay south to the Point of the Mountain, east to the town of Brighton and west to the Great Salt Lake—but most of the rescues (about 65 a year) occur in the mountains directly east of the Wasatch Front.

These missions include coming to the aid of injured hikers, climbers and skiers; performing swift and deep-water rescues; and, while it’s a function they do not necessarily advertise, transporting dehydrated or injured dogs off trails. (SLCSAR made international news—as well as received kudos and donations from around the world—when they rescued Floyd, a 190-pound injured mastiff, on the Grandeur Peak Trail in 2019.) Here, five SLCSAR team members share tales of their heroism, and what keeps them on as part of the volunteer crew.

 

How to Help Yourself: 10 Outdoor Essentials

The 10 Essentials is a well-known list of items to carry into the backcountry, regardless of how long or nearby you plan to venture out. If having all 10 seems like overkill for, say, a quick after-work jaunt into Neff’s Canyon, SLCSAR Commander John Patterson recommends taking at least the following: something to keep warm, extra water and a communication device. “Those three will help people avoid a lot of sticky situations,” he says.

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Learn more about the Salt Lake County Search and Rescue team, here.

Discover more outdoor inspiration, and find all our Adventure coverage. And while you’re here, why not subscribe and get six annual issues of Salt Lake magazine’s curated guide to the best of life in Utah? 

We’re going to need all the hands you have down there,” 

Crackles the calm voice, broadcast as if in surround sound to the many radios worn by the men and women around me. It’s late November 2024 and I’m standing in a cul-de-sac east of Sandy near the mouth of Bells Canyon. The late winter sun hangs low in the sky as I shift from one foot to the other to keep warm. Most of the people there—various members of Sandy City Fire, Salt Lake County Sheriff and Salt Lake County Search and Rescue (SLCSAR)—have been on hand for hours after a woman called 911 from the Bells Canyon Trail. Her hiking partner had slipped on a section of the trail that’s typically icy in the winter, due to spray from the perennial waterfall. The fall had injured her friend’s lower leg badly enough that she was not able to walk out on her own

The faces around me maintain their business-like expressions, including the four SAR Team members busily loading up their packs with ropes, snacks and other rescue gear. They would be the third of four groups of team members to head up the trail that day to the injured woman, or patient. I continue to watch as they pull a sked, or portable stretcher, from a trailer parked in the center of the vehicles clustered in the cul-de-sac. “Skeds are flexible enough to wrap around the patient, allowing the team to move them down the steepest terrain, even vertical pitches,” explains SLCSAR Commander John Patterson. “Along with the sked, all you need is a rope and enough manpower.” Overhearing, one of the team members looks our way with a grin, “rope, manpower and a plucky attitude,” she quips.

The rescue team

SLCSAR was established in 1957 and, under the direction of the Salt Lake County Sheriff, is responsible for all search and rescue missions in Salt Lake County. The team’s service area covers the county’s entire 807-square-mile area—spanning roughly from Farmington Bay south to the Point of the Mountain, east to the town of Brighton and west to the Great Salt Lake—but most of the rescues (about 65 a year) occur in the mountains directly east of the Wasatch Front.

These missions include coming to the aid of injured hikers, climbers and skiers; performing swift and deep-water rescues; and, while it’s a function they do not necessarily advertise, transporting dehydrated or injured dogs off trails. (SLCSAR made international news—as well as received kudos and donations from around the world—when they rescued Floyd, a 190-pound injured mastiff, on the Grandeur Peak Trail in 2019.) Despite the term “Search” in the team’s formal name, people don’t often get truly lost in Salt Lake County’s mountains and undeveloped areas. “Our canyons are different from the Uintas or even Wasatch Mountain State Park,” Patterson says. “Cell phone reception is good throughout most of the Central Wasatch—except for Millcreek Canyon, which is a big, black hole. But, most of the people we help call 911 and can tell us exactly where they are.”

As of this writing, SLCSAR has 34 team members, 13 of whom are women, ranging in age from 24 to 63. Patterson explained that while other SAR teams across the state span 80, 100 or even 150 members, Salt Lake County’s team is kept under 40 by design. “Many of the larger SAR teams have specialist teams within the larger team,” says Patterson, who’s been a SLCSAR Team member since 2000. “We train all team members in every kind of rescue. Also, because we look for a certain kind of type-A personality, we’ve found if the team is more than 40, people tend to quit because they spend too much time sitting around at the trailhead during a mission.”

But having “pluck” and a “type-A” personality are just the beginning. Most SLCSAR team members are advanced-level skiers, hikers, rock climbers, and super fit. The physical test for initiates includes hiking with a loaded pack up the Mount Olympus Trail to the stream crossing—two miles with a 1,800-foot elevation gain—in under 50 minutes. Team members must also have the work- and home-life flexibility to be able to drop whatever they are doing to respond to calls day or night, year-round. Like most SAR Teams across the U.S., they are volunteers. This means no compensation and the personal means to shell out for gas and personal gear. 

Time spent on this “hobby” is not insignificant. In addition to rescue missions, team members are required to attend two Monday evening meetings and one all-day Saturday field training per month. Recruits train for an additional 10 hours per month for nine months before they are considered full-fledged team members. The SLCSAR Team averages 9,000 volunteer hours per year. “The time commitment allows us to weed some people out,” Patterson says. “It’s not like volunteering at the humane society.”

The Mission

Like all 911 calls made within Salt Lake County, a call from someone in distress in the backcountry is routed to the Salt Lake Communications Center. From there, if the dispatcher determines the call is SAR-related, it’s transferred to the sheriff deputy on duty who decides whether to alert the SAR Team. Many of the first-responder agencies in communities along Salt Lake County’s eastern wildland-urban-interface, like Sandy City Fire, for example, are trained and equipped to perform a backcountry rescue, if a rescue isn’t more complicated than transporting the patient out on a wheeled rescue litter. “The sheriff receives more than 100 calls per year from people in distress in the backcountry, a little over half of which SLCSAR is deployed on,” Patterson says.

In a SAR deployment, the sheriff deputy calls Patterson or SLCSAR Vice Commander Ryan Clerico who, in turn, sends text alerts to the rest of the team. “It can be a little harder to wake people up with the first text at 2 or 3 a.m.,” Patterson says. The team meets the deputy, who brings the SAR rescue equipment trailer, at the trailhead or access point closest to the patient. A “first,” or “hasty” team, heads up the trail as soon as they arrive to assess the patient. Teams Two, Three and sometimes Four, follow with additional supplies, tools and people power to get the person out.

SAR rescue gear is heavy, and the Wasatch Mountains get steep very quickly, which is why most SLCSAR rescues involve an all-hands-on-deck response. “Multiple people are needed to safely lower a sked, and two people can only push and pull a litter over the rocks and roots of a typical trail for so long before they are getting fatigued,” Patterson explains. “So, the more people you have to take turns on the litter, the more quickly we can get the patient out.” 

Every mission is run by one person, a position Patterson consciously rotates among the ranks. “I want to make sure everyone gets a turn to ‘the’ guy or girl on a mission—to be the tip of the spear,” he says. “That way new team members get integrated more quickly and feel like they are a more indispensable part of the team.” One of the most important decisions the mission leader makes is how to extract the patient from the backcountry. Depending on the patient’s condition, that decision can involve several methods, from walking the patient out to the trailhead to utilizing one of the most critical and visible tools in search and rescue: helicopters.

The Tools

There’s likely not a sound or sight more closely associated with SAR operations in the Salt Lake Valley than a helicopter traversing the skies along the Wasatch Front. Both the Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS) and Intermountain LifeFlight operate helicopters equipped with hoists, or winch cable systems, that allow injured adventurers to be plucked from places where a helicopter cannot land. LifeFlight has performed hoist transports since 2001; DPS, which flies more powerful H125 helicopters than LifeFlight’s AW109SP helicopters, added hoist capabilities in 2016. DPS stationed a second hoist helicopter in St. George in 2023, which Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins says has been a game-changer. “[GCSAR] performed 136 rescues in 2024,” Wiggins says. “Most are people going out into the desert and not being prepared with enough water for the temperatures. The helicopter allows us to get to people much more quickly while reducing the risk for the SAR team.” Yet, while helicopters are certainly indispensable tools, they are not infallible.

Helicopters achieve lift as rotor blades push against the air; the denser the air, the easier it is to fly. But when temperatures soar, air density decreases and many helicopters cannot fly. Over the last few summers, extreme heat has grounded rescue teams across the Western U.S. At lower altitudes, it takes triple-digit temps to impede helicopter flight. But at higher altitudes, particularly at 10,000 feet or higher, heat becomes a factor when temps hit the ’80s. The reflective quality of the mountains’ rocky topography further complicates flight. “Helicopters are amazing tools in rescue,” Patterson says, “but they also are fighting physics each second they are in the air.” And, while lighter remote flying machines, drones, are proving invaluable to the  “Search” in SAR they still can’t perform the actual “R” if needed, yet.

For example last November, I was able to observe SLCSAR team members taking turns trundling an injured hiker down the icy Bells Canyon trail from the trailhead. Thanks to a drone, we watched the team’s progress on a screen within the SAR trailer. The team has also used drones to both locate and communicate with patients, including last fall when a woman found herself stuck on Mount Superior’s South Ridge after dark. Weber County Search and Rescue is currently testing a drone that can carry up to 80 pounds to potentially transport wheeled litters, ropes, skeds and other heavy tools, significantly speeding the time for SLCSAR teams to get to a patient.    

The Backyard Mindset

Almost 1.2 million people live in Salt Lake County, an urban area that borders tens of thousands of acres of undeveloped forest, canyons, ridges and mountaintops. This stone’s-throw proximity allows those who live here a unique ease of access to hiking, skiing, climbing or simply being in nature. But that proximity also breeds complacency.

“In Colorado, people have to drive two hours or more to get to a trailhead, or three to four hours to go backcountry skiing,” Patterson says. “I think the more effort people have to put in to get into the backcountry, the more prepared they tend to be. Here, hundreds of thousands of people can access a trailhead within minutes of leaving their house. They think ‘I’m just going to go for a quick hike during my lunch break, I don’t need to take any water or food or an extra layer,’ and then it gets hot or too cold or they twist an ankle and then their cell phone dies and suddenly they’re in real trouble. The easy access to the mountains here makes people much more casual about going into them.”

This backyard mindset was certainly at play when Rebecca (not her real name), a 26-year-old Sandy resident, set out on a sunny, uncharacteristically warm afternoon last October to solo climb Mount Superior’s South Ridge, a high-level ascent, with intermittent vertical steepness and sustained exposure. “I’d done it on my own at least five or six times previously and felt confident in my plan that day,” she says. “But then, on the way up, I dropped my phone and spent 45 minutes trying to dig it out of the rocks. When I finally got it out, I realized that the sun was about to set.” Her plan after summiting was to descend the mountain’s Cardiff Pass hiking trail. “With it getting dark I thought going back down the South Ridge would be faster.” But after multiple down-climb attempts, Rebecca realized the danger and, with five percent battery left, called her mom. “It was dark by then and I was pretty upset,” she says. “My mom told me not to move and to call 911.”

SLCSAR sent up a drone to pinpoint her location, as well as communicate with her about her condition. From her perch, Rebecca watched three headlamps bobbing up through the darkness along the same route she had climbed earlier that day. Two hours later, when the first team arrived at her location, Rebecca was so cold she could hardly move. “I was dressed for running, in a vest, tank top and running shorts,” she says. The team gave her a jacket and fleece pants, and because of how close she was to hypothermia, decided to call the DPS hoist helicopter to get her off the mountain. “I still don’t talk about this to many people and am pretty embarrassed by the whole thing,” Rebecca says. “But now, whenever I go out, even if it’s for a short hike, I take much more stuff than I think I’m going to need.”

The Unfortunate Outcomes

Most of the time, SAR rescuers get to deliver hope and reassurance to people who really need it, like Rebecca. “The moment when you come on the patient is just the best,” says SLCSAR Team Member Kevin Nguyễn. “They are having what is likely the worst day of their life and you show up with food and water and help. The relief on their face makes the late nights and long days worth it.” But, of course, not all missions conclude with a happy ending. Several times a year SLCSAR responds to calls for help that involve body recoveries. These tragic incidents include avalanche deaths, drownings and climbing falls, many of which require team members to spend hours with the body before transport out. “I’ve seen a lot of things I can’t unsee,” says SLCSAR Team Member Rick Vollmer. “I just keep talking about it, with my wife, my sons and other people on the team.”

Addressing the mental health challenges endemic to first responder work was among the first actions taken by SLCSAR’s nonprofit arm after it was formed in 2022. SLCSAR board member Francine Mullen applied for and landed a grant to pay for training through the Responder Alliance, a mental health organization that helps first responders learn how to avoid traumatic stress injuries. “We have had a good response from the team for the Responder Alliance,” Patterson says. “Thankfully, mental health is no longer a taboo subject for first responders, including our team.”

On that evening last November at the mouth of Bells Canyon, just before the SAR team returned with the injured patient, I watched as the patient’s friend, visibly exhausted, arrived at the cul-de-sac where I stood. I took note of her warm clothing, gaiters, the spikes attached to the bottom of her boots, her pack and hiking poles. I spend as much time as I can hiking, skiing and climbing in the Wasatch, and before that evening, I admit that I’d often thought “I’d never let anything like that happen to me” when I read mission accounts on SLCSAR’s Instagram feed. But, what I noticed about the woman, whose friend likely had one of her worst days, is that she was outfitted in exactly the same way I would have been for a wintertime hike up Bells Canyon. It made me realize that no one expects the worst to happen. But when it does, I’m more grateful now than ever that if I or anyone else needs it, someone is there to pull up the slack.  

Who Pays?

Like most of the country’s search and rescue organizations, SLCSAR does not charge for their services. (Rescues involving medical transport, like LifeFlight, are billed to the patient’s insurance.) They take this altruistic standpoint to prevent people from delaying calling 911 until their situation is life-or-death (“That not only puts the patients’ safety at greater risk, but the safety of our volunteers,” Patterson explains.) and SLCSAR is a member of the Mountain Rescue Association, a coalition of 90 rescue teams across North America all subscribing to a long-standing policy against charging for rescue. That said, purchase of the USARA Card supports the state’s Search and Rescue Financial Assistance Program. To help out SLCSAR specifically, people can donate to the team’s new nonprofit arm at saltlakesearchandrescue.org.  

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March and April are the bona fide salad days of living along the Wasatch Front when mountain snow conditions are still stellar and the valley’s foothill singletrack is all smooth, tacky fun. But before you dust off your knobby wheels and hit the dirt, investing in a little mountain-bike specific spring strength training can help ease the transition from sliding down mountains to peddling up them. So says two former professional mountain bike racers and now coaches, WUKAR Fit’s Art O’Connor, who focuses on gym-specific strength training for cyclists, and K Cycling Coaching’s Sarah Kaufmann, a specialist in helping elite mountain bikers build both endurance and speed. 

Getting Strong

Coming out of ski season most mountain bikers’ leg strength is pretty much up to snuff, O’Connor explained. “Where most people, alpine skiers especially, lack strength in the spring,” he says, “is in the upper body.” To prepare your arms, shoulders, upper back and core for the demands of climbing and descending on a mountain bike, O’Connor recommends adding push-pull exercises to your fitness routine.

Push-ups:Not surprisingly, the good ole push-up remains the standard-bearer of developing upper-body pushing strength. To achieve the perfect-form push-up, begin in a plank position with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width and your feet at hip-width. Tighten your core and then lower your body until your elbows are at a 45-degree angle. Pause for a beat and then push back up the starting position. Your body should remain in a straight line from head to heels the entire time, no sagging or rising hips allowed. “And you don’t get better at push-ups by doing them on your knees, but rather doing them with your hands elevated, ideally in a stairwell,” O’Connor says. “Start on the highest stair you can reach,” he says. “When you can do three sets of 10 in perfect form, then you’re ready to move down to the next step.” 

Plank Pulls:To increase pull strength, used by mountain bikers as they pull on the handlebars to apply pressure to their back wheel as they ascend hills, O’Connor recommends plank pulls, or pulling your upper body up while in an inverted or upward-facing plank position. The farther you place your feet out in front of you, decreasing the angle of your body in relation to the floor, the more difficult the plank pull will be. This exercise can be done in the gym by pulling yourself up on a pair of TRX bands suspended from a ceiling or by pulling yourself up to a barbell placed on a squat rack. A plank pull can also be performed at home by crawling under a dining room table and pulling yourself up by holding onto the edge of the table.

Greasing the Groove:For athletes looking to get strong without bulking up, O’Connor recommends “greasing the groove,” a training technique that increases neuromuscular efficiency through minimal repetitions and plenty of rest time in between sets. An example of this training technique would be doing three sets of three to five push-ups spread throughout the day: one set after getting up in the morning, another at midday, and a final set in the evening. “It’s not necessary to follow that exact schedule,” he says, “the key is keeping the reps low and making sure the time in between sets is at least an hour.”

How to Last All Day 

The best way to maintain endurance-related fitness, says Kaufmann, is by regularly engaging in an activity that challenges your cardiovascular system. “For athletes who put away their bike for the winter, that can look like ski touring, snowshoeing, hiking or running—anything that gets your heart rate up and keeps it up for a while,” she says. “The more you do over the winter, the more you can absorb when you get back on the bike in the spring.” Of those activities, Kaufmann says that ski touring translates particularly well to mountain biking. “The motion of dragging your ski uphill uses many of the same muscles used in a pedal stroke, and then skiing downhill is very similar to the skills of spatial perception and maintaining your body at a speed that is required in mountain biking.”

For those of us, like me, who tend to let the chairlifts do most of the work during the winter, Kaufmann says that cadence workouts are a great way to kick-start your cycling endurance in the spring. A simple example that can be done on a gym bike, trainer or on the road is performing three to five sets of pedaling at a high cadence for one minute and then backing it down to a normal cadence for five minutes. “You don’t need a computer to tell you what your cadence is,” she says. “A high cadence is when you’re pedaling at an uncomfortably fast pace but below the point that you’re bouncing out of the saddle.” 

Another workout, more focused on neuromuscular power, can be done by repeating a gradual climb that takes about three to five minutes to complete one time. Ride the climb once in a moderate gear and then repeat, shifting the gears up one cog harder each time, until you fail. Whenever you do get back on the bike, Kaufmann warns, resist the urge to ramp up too quickly. “Even if you feel good, always take it easy when restarting an activity you haven’t done for a while, even one you’ve done for years,” she says. “Doing too much too soon is a sure-fire recipe for starting the season with an injury.”

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Tired of sweating it out in the gym? Time to learn to skate ski. After relocating to Utah from the Upper Midwest flatlands to Utah in my mid-20s, I let my classic-style cross-country skis gather dust for about a decade while I rode chairlifts and searched for face shots. But then one February, during an unusually extended period of high pressure, I got an invite to attend the Bryce Canyon Winter Festival, a weekend of mostly free activities held on the edge of Bryce Canyon National Park. There I took my first skate-skiing lesson and was hooked. While classic cross-country skiing is similar to going for a stroll along a flat sidewalk, skate skiing is as exhilarating as going for a trail run. Skate-skiing’s simultaneous upper-and lower-body workout checks both the cardiovascular- and muscle-building boxes while torching a whopping 600 to 800 calories per hour. And because most of Utah’s state-skiing tracks are in super-scenic wooded or rolling hills locations, the experience is much more mentally rejuvenating than spending an hour indoors in the stuffy gym.  

The only downside: learning proper skate skiing techniques takes time and practice. I had, misguidedly, tried to figure it out on my own before my first lesson at Bryce Canyon. But each time I went, I’d shuffle along awkwardly, bathed in sweat, trying to move my arms and legs in the effortless rhythm I’d see other skiers on the track demonstrate seemingly effortlessly while they passed me on the track, greeting me with an always cheerful, “good morning!”

Taking a lesson, especially for beginners, affirmed Don DeBlieux, a PSIA Level 3 Nordic instructor with 30-plus years of experience and who teaches at White Pine Touring Nordic Center in Park City, will “save you a lot of frustration and you won’t develop movement patterns that are inefficient and hard to break,” he says. “And I’m not just saying this to get more business. I’d much rather have a blank canvas than someone who tried to figure it out on their own.”

Learn the Proper Skate-Skiing Techniques

While there are several factors in mastering a skate-skiing’s V-shaped stance, solid technique boils down to getting comfortable with balancing on one leg. “Make sure you commit completely to one ski before pushing off onto the other ski,” DeBlieux says. “And keep that head up and eyes down the trail, you don’t have to keep an eye on your skis, if they fall off you will know.”

There are boatloads of drills new skate skiers can do to get accustomed to balancing on one ski, but one of the simplest, DeBlieux says, is this: when on a slight downhill, attempt to hold a glide on one ski a bit farther with each stride. “When we coach kids, we do contests to see who can go the farthest on one ski,” he says. “Hopping on one ski is also a good one. Some skiers practice by always standing on one leg when they brush their teeth.”

For what it’s worth, mastering one-leg balance is beneficial to classic skiing techniques, too. “[In classic skiing] the ski is moving down the track and we want to be over it and moving with it,” she says. “The most efficient classic skiers are moving from leg to leg just like we do when we walk and run.”

Where the pros are

Avoid the inevitable frustration of trying to learn how to skate-ski on your own by taking a lesson or clinic from one of the following Nordic schools or learn-to organizations.

Utah Nordic Alliance (TUNA)

Learn-to-ski programs for kids, juniors and adults are held at TUNA’s Parleys Canyon home base at the Mountain Dell Golf Course.

White Pine Touring Nordic Center

Located at the Park City Golf Course, they offer separate men’s and ladies’ learn-to-skate-ski-lesson series, weekly in January and February.

Park City Nordic Betties 

This group offers an eight-week skate-skiing series for beginners/never-evers starting January 8. Each lesson in the series is held at a different location around Park City, based on weather and conditions.

Ogden Nordic (ON) 

ON offers skate and classic ski lessons at North Fork Park in Ogden. Classic and skate-skiing group lessons for beginners are offered on Saturdays; private lessons are available with reservations seven days a week.

Solitude Nordic Center

Skate and classic group and private lessons, equipment rentals and track passes are taught on 20K of groomed trails adjacent to Solitude Mountain Resort. The Center also hosts a four-session women’s beginner skate-skiing clinic that includes equipment rental and a track pass.

Soldier Hollow Nordic Center 

Offering skate-skiing newbies a one-hour classic ski lesson that includes a Nordic track pass and equipment rental.

Sundance Resort’s Nordic Center

Offering weekly Ladies’ Day classic and skate-skiing clinics in January that include equipment rentals and a pass to the resort’s gorgeous 15K track.

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Though I’ve never had the pleasure of going on a hut-to-hut ski vacation, I am wistful about doing so all the same. I imagine days filled with skiing run after run of pristine powder snow followed by nights in a snug yurt, sitting next to a glowing wood stove while sipping a hot buttered rum and recounting the day’s adventures with my ski buddies. Hut systems are prolific in Europe, where they are known as “refugees,” and in Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Washington State. A few backcountry huts exist here in Utah, but most are not meant to be used for a consecutive multiday hut trip. However, thanks to Shaun Raskin Deutschlander, founder and lead guide for the Park City-based, Inspired Summit Adventures, the same dreamy guided backcountry skiing experience you can get in Europe or other Western states is now available in Utah.

In December 2024 Deutschlander announced the opening of guided tours between the first two yurts of a planned five-yurt network, dubbed the Western Uinta Hut System, offering unprecedented recreational access to 100,000 acres of rugged backcountry terrain in the Uinta Mountains. When all five huts of the system are in place, connecting routes will span 96.17 miles of developed trails, ideal for travel by backcountry skiers, snowmobilers, hikers, mountain bikers and UTV enthusiasts. For the 2024-25 winter season, Inspired Summit is offering guided, multiday backcountry skiing trips using the hut system’s two existing yurts—trips that, as of mid-December, were already booked out into March 2025 (despite the less-than-stellar start of the winter season). In early December 2024, I got to go with Deutschlander to preview Inspired Summit’s cozy Smith and Morehouse yurt. Here’s what I learned.

“When I started Inspired Summit over a decade ago, I only dreamed that one day I would be in a position to work with the Forest Service and the outdoor community in such a profound way,” Deutschlander says. “Most people who visit the Uintas don’t go beyond the overcrowded roadside destinations like Trial Lake and Lilly Lake. This [hut system] is an opportunity for outdoors lovers to get away from the crowds, and for me, to create a legacy focused on my values of sustainability and leave no trace.”

Deutschlander set the first phase of that dream into motion when she purchased the Castle Peak Yurt from Park City’s White Pine Touring in 2021. “It had been well-loved over its many years and so we replaced it with a new yurt and also added a guide hut and wood-burning sauna,” she says. In Fall 2024, the system’s second hut, the Smith and Morehouse yurt, was constructed near the banks of the Smith and Morehouse Reservoir, 11 miles and 2,000 feet of elevation away from the Castle Peak yurt.

Inspired Summit’s winter 2024-25 hut-to-hut trips begin at the Castle Peak Yurt where skiers get to spend their first couple of days venturing out on guided, high-elevation tours and taking advantage of the sauna. The second half of the experience follows the long descent to the Smith and Morehouse yurt (gear is moved via porter service) and another day (or more) of exploring that corner of the Uintas. Each yurt sleeps between six and 10 adults, which made me wonder if separate groups are booked in the yurts at the same time. “Nope,” said Cindi Grant, Inspired Summit’s director of operations.” Every trip we book is private and customized to each group.”

On the day I got to tour the Smith and Morehouse yurt with Deutschlander, we met in Weber Canyon just outside of Oakley. The road to the Smith and Morehouse reservoir is not maintained in the winter, and so she had brought along snowmobiles for us to ride into the yurt. As we rounded a corner and approached the north end of the reservoir, Deutschlander stopped so we could take in the magical view. A series of rounded mountain peaks, typical of the Uintas, stood like quiet sentinels over the frozen lake where a group of skaters played hockey on the icy surface. “The Uintas are one of the oldest mountain ranges in North America, and were sculpted by glaciers that carved out all the lakes people are aware of,” Deutschlander explained, “and created really fun and nuanced skiing terrain.”      

We hopped back on the snowmobiles and continued along the lake to the yurt. Fun fact: yurts originated thousands of years ago in the Central Asian Steppes where nomadic cultures, like the Mongols and Turks, used them as portable homes. Original yurts were covered with animal skins; a durable canvas/plastic hybrid covers most modern yurts, that functions in the same way as the traditional ones: to keep heat in and wind and snow out. The Smith and Morehouse yurt sits atop a large deck that extends well beyond the shelter’s footprint, offering an ideal outdoor space for catching some rays on a sunny day. A breezeway is also attached to the yurt, a smart addition, I thought, to both avoid snow blowing in the door and give visitors a protected place to stash their skis or bikes outside the yurt. An ADA-compliant ramp, wide door opening and adjustable tables provide wheelchair access in the summer when it’s possible to drive to the yurt.

A table set with soup bowls, stainless steel wine glasses and a huge charcuterie board greeted us as we entered the yurt. Grant gave us a warm “hello” from the kitchen area where she was kneading dough for pizzas to bake inside a pizza oven affixed on top of the wood-burning stove. Inspired Summit’s yurt catering menus include items like burritos, French toast or oatmeal for breakfast; a sandwich bar and snacks for in-the-field lunches; and pizzas and soup, Mexican night, curry or pasta for dinners. Every menu is adjustable with respect to food allergies or dietary choices, too. “Shaun went to culinary school, and so food is a big deal for us,” Grant says. “Much of the food we serve is organic and sourced from high-end grocers like Whole Foods.”  

And, of course, what would a ski trip be without après? In addition to the fabulous charcuterie spread we enjoyed during my visit, the post-tour snack menu Inspired Summit offers guests includes a chips and salsa bar, Mediterranean-style nuts and olives and two beers per person. 

“The two beers are included, but we have a big a la carte menu with wine and cocktails, too, and people are welcome to bring their own alcohol that we can transport up to either of the yurts,” Grant says.

Deutschlander’s goal is to complete the remaining three Western Uinta Hut System yurts by 2027. Locations she’s eyeing for the additional yurts include just outside of Samak near the Slate Creek mountain biking trail system, and at Big Elk Lake and Ramona Lake. When completed, each yurt in the system will be situated within six to eight miles along established trails from the next one, providing a way for everyone from seasoned outdoor recreationists to families with small children to have a truly adventurous and nature-immersive experience.  

“My goal is to get the yurts as close to trails as possible but still far enough away so as not to interfere with other people’s exploration of these incredible mountains,” Deutschlander says.

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