Winter 2024/25 Course Dates now available for registration.

Expedition Training - Mountaineering (Alpine Climbing)

Guiding & Instruction - Expedition Training

Expedition Skills

During a single-day, multi-day and/or overnight outing, customize training for your next objective. Build mountaineering skills, winter camp and/or climb a Wasatch peak or couloir in preparation for Rainier, Aconcagua, Denali, Matterhorn or other expedition climbing.

Typical Skills / Training Topics:

  • Efficient loading and carrying of expedition pack
  • Sled rigging and hauling with snowshoes or skis
  • Route-finding and avalanche safety
  • Establishing a solid snow camp w/ deadman anchors and snow walls
  • Cooking and comfort in cold, snowy environment
  • Ice axe and crampons skills and self-arrest
  • Snow and rock protection, anchors and equalizing
  • Crevasse rescue, raising systems and ascending a rope
  • Use of running protection (pro)
  • Short-roping and short-pitching
  • Fixed line travel and use of ascenders
  • Efficient travel on snow and rock in exposed terrain

Common objectives include Red or White Baldy, Salt Lake Twin Peaks and the Pfeifferhorn via the East or North Ridge.

Difficulty: Beginner to advanced; no previous mountaineering experience necessary; moderate to strong fitness helpful

Duration: One or more days

Max Ratio: 4:1

Meeting Time: Generally 8am

Meeting Location: White Pine Trailhead or Big or Little Cottonwood Park and Ride Lot

What We Provide: 

  • Broadly experienced, highly-trained, professional ski and mountaineering guides
  • Helmet, harness, avalanche beacon, shovel, probe and pack (if needed)
  • Breakfast, dinner, tent, cook kit and stove

What You Need: 

Price includes one full day plus an overnight

1 person, single-day $450
2 people, single-day $300 / person
1 person, overnight $985 for 2 days; + $592.50 for each add'l day and overnight
2 people, overnight $685 / person; + $412.50 for each add'l day and overnight

State & Local Taxes will be added. Gratuity not included.

Expedition Training | Utah Mountain Adventures

Pulling a Sled in White Pine Gulch

Photo by Tyson Bradley


Utah Mountain Adventures

P.O. Box 521809

Salt Lake City, Utah 84152-1809

Phone: (801) 550 3986

Fax: (801) 486 8505

Email: uma@utahmountainadventures.com

Utah Mountain Adventures | Patagonia Utah Mountain Adventures | Forest Service Backcountry Skiing Utah, by Tyson Bradley
Backcountry Skiing & Snowboarding - Utah Mountain Adventures

Leave the crowds behind, and expand your skiing and snowboarding horizons! Traveling out-ofbounds, using climbing skins and alpine touring (AT) or telemark binding, or a split-board is becoming tremendously popular.

AT skis and splitboards are available for rent from UMA and local shops.

Touring is the perfect sport for those who hike or climb in summer and love to ski or snowboard in winter. Skinning facilitates approach and egress from peaks in winter and spring that would take far longer without. Solitude, cardio-vascular exercise, and adventurous runs are all part of the "off-piste" experience.

The Wasatch Range offers easy lift and trailhead access to deep, light snow in wide-open bowls, protected glades, and steep chutes.

Lift access is available from Alta, Brighton, The Canyons and Snowbird.

Trailhead access is available in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons and Millcreek, etc.

A knowledgeable UMA guide will lead you into the finest snow and terrain. Our guides keep abreast of the avalanche, snow and weather conditions to choose the best tours. They take into consideration both your fitness level and downhill ability to select the appropriate routes for you.

UMA guides pace you and teach you how to travel uphill efficiently, working on rest-step and kick-turning techniques and progress only as fast as you feel comfortable. They give you plenty of time to rest, enjoy the view and take photos. UMA guides demonstrate how to transition between the uphill and downhill modes and teach as much about avalanche hazard evaluation, route finding and other skills as you want to learn.

Skiers and snowboarders of all ability levels improve techniques, discover new terrain, and build leadership skills.

For more information on backcountry skiing & snowboarding classes in the Salt Lake City, Utah area, please view our Backcountry Skiing & Splitboarding Courses.

We also offer private Guided Backcountry Touring & Instruction in the Wasatch Range in and around the Salt Lake area.