Tibble Fork With Andy

Words by Ben White

March 12, 2024. It was a sunny day. Andy and I had no real agenda except to just go skiing in a new-to-us place, south of the Central Wasatch in American Fork Canyon. We would park at Tibble Fork and blunder up Box Elder until we figured out that we had walked uphill enough. Skiing with Andy is a real treat. A former world class ski racer, he makes smooth clean arcs better than anybody. The plan was loose and we blundered uphill until we got a great view. We were able to look at Alpine ridge to the north and Timpanogos to the south. Andy has plans to get married this year. We talked about how life has changed from college to our early 30’s. We felt like grownups who didn’t sign up to be grownups. At least today, we were boys going for a blunder in the woods. Three skiers dropped in just as we were getting to the top. I don’t know if they saw us.

It was sunny. Some of the snow was getting sticky. Those three skiers dropped north of where we had come up. We could either follow their tracks and see something new or follow our own skin track back home. Either way, we would have seen something new to us. We opted to follow their tracks and have new uphill and new downhill views. Top down skiing is the best. Full adventure, not knowing what’s around the next corner, and the ability to do it while making smooth clean arcs on a fresh face.

It was the right choice. We skied powder and laughed and smiled the entire way down. The avalanche path was a joy to ski and ended abruptly in a very steep creek bed. Thank goodness it was a generally stable day. Snow movement into the creekbed would have been bad. We skied down, giggling at how fun the rollercoaster of snow between steep walls was. Once the creek bed flattened out into the forest, it was time to put our former slalom racing skills to the test. We got back to the car so psyched on one of the best days of skiing we had had all season. It was so excellent to connect with a long time friend and ski in a new place together.