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WMG Now Guiding Utah County: 5-Year USFS Permit

We are elated to announce our new 5-Year permit in the Southern Wasatch Range, Utah. This includes the mountains from the Little Cottonwood Canyon/American Fork Divide and running south to Mount Nebo. We're excited to offer guided backcountry skiing, avalanche courses, alpine climbing, ice climbing, rock climbing, hiking and trekking, and alpine running. Or design a custom experience with WMG (including overnighters), hire us for a corporate team-building event, or family outing.

WMG Now Guiding Utah County: 5-Year USFS Permit -

Now Guiding Utah County: A Five-Year USFS Permit

Wasatch Mountain Guides has been granted a five-year Temporary Special Use Permit by the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, authorizing us to guide year-round across the Pleasant Grove and Spanish Fork ranger districts. In practical terms, that opens up nearly every objective Utah County backcountry users already know well, from the ridgelines north of Provo down to the peaks above Spanish Fork.

If you’ve been waiting for a way to get out in your home range with a certified guide, that door is now open.

What the Permit Covers

The permit is year-round and covers the full scope of what we do:

  • Backcountry skiing and avalanche education (December through May), maximum four clients per guide. From American Fork Canyon trailheads, to Aspen Grove (Timpanogos), from Cascade Peak to Loafer Mountain (including Provo Peak!).
  • Mountaineering, year-round, including the Catwalk between Freedom Peak and Provo Peak, the Cascade Mountain ridgeline, and long alpine routes on Maple Mountain’s SW face
  • Rock climbing (May through November) in Rock Canyon, Slate Canyon, and American Fork Canyon, including the B-52 Wall and Hard Rock
  • Ice climbing (December through February) on suitable formations, one to two clients per guide on technical terrain
  • Hiking and trekking (May through November) on Timpanogos, Cascade, Provo Peak, Loafer, Spanish Fork Peak, Shingle Mill, Freedom Peak, Maple Mountain, and Corral Mountain

The terrain list reads like a Utah County local’s project list, and that’s the point. If you can drive to it from Provo or Orem in under an hour, we can likely guide it.

If you’re building a ski season around the southern Wasatch, that’s the page to look at: guided backcountry skiing in the southern Wasatch. For rock, dates and pricing live on the Utah County rock climbing page.

For hiking, we can cover a lot of ground in the area: Hiking in the Wasatch

Explore our Utah Trips and Adventures

What we can do in the Salt Lake area, we can also do in the Southern Wasatch mountains!

Climb, Ski, Hike, Run

Our Approach

WMG guides at the ownership level are IFMGA or AMGA-certified, and every guide on our roster operates within the AMGA’s Scope of Practice. That’s the international standard for professional mountain guiding, and it’s the one we built the company around.

On the ground in Utah County, our approach looks like this. Small groups, capped at four clients per guide for most activities. No bolting, no fixed anchors, and nothing left behind on climbing routes. WAG bags on snow and alpine terrain, and all trash packed out regardless of who left it. No caching of gear between trips. Every WMG guide teaches LNT ethics on every day out. The full framework we work from comes from the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics.

We also try to reduce our footprint at the trailheads themselves. Rock Canyon, Aspen Grove, and Slate Canyon get busy, and we meet clients outside the canyons and carpool in whenever we can. It’s a small thing that adds up across a season.

Two Organizations to Know

If you spend time in this terrain, two nonprofits are worth knowing and supporting.

The Utah Avalanche Center publishes the daily forecast for the Provo Area zone and is the single most important resource for any backcountry skier or rider in Utah County. Read it every morning before you go out. Donate to their fundraiser if you can.

The Access Fund is the national climbing advocacy nonprofit that has worked for years to keep Utah’s climbing areas, including Rock Canyon and American Fork, open to the public. If you climb here, you owe them a membership.

Get in Touch

If you’ve been waiting to book something closer to home, this is the season. Take a look at the ski page and the climbing page, or reach out directly. We’ll match the objective to your experience and get you on the calendar.