As you drive west on highway 80 and you look to the right (north) you see this glorious peak that is just begging you to ski it. Every time I drive down to SLC, I say to myself- I need to ski Lookout Peak and 2020 was going to be the year that I check this peak off my list. I reconned this peak in the fall so I had a good understanding of the route and the ski line options. There are a few spins that offer the safest routes and the further you traverse along the ridge to the summit, the deeper you get into the mountain range which would require skinning back over a few ridges to get back to home base. If you are going to ski towards highway 80, then this aspect is a south facing slope so it is recommend to ski this face in January and after a small to medium storm.
I recruited my buddy, Zach, to do this with me and we got an early start in the dark in late January. It had snowed about 6” the day before and the avalanche forecast was low so this was the ideal time to ski Lookout. The Mountain Dell Canyon road is closed in the winter so we opted to take the snowmobiles to cut down on our skinning. From the gate to Affleck Park is about 2 miles so the snowmobiles provide a nice lift before the long skin out the ridge of Lookout Peak. Luckily there was a skin track in place and the first 2 miles to the ridge is pretty easy going. Once you get to the ridge, you think are close to the summit but you still have about a mile to go to the actual summit. By the time we got to the ridge, we were about 2.5 hours into the day and we both had some other commitments so we were not able to go out the ridge beyond the first spine. Nonetheless, the first spine that we decided to take offered a consistent and fun 30 degree pitch.
Every time I drive to SLC, I can now point to Mt. Aire and Lookout Peak and boost to my kids that I have skied those peaks!
