Jeff DeMoss

SNOWBASIN -- Freeskier extraordinaire and Utah resident Tom Wallisch is looking at an iPad, reading aloud a series of numbers in rapid succession.

SNOWBASIN -- In just his second year as a professional, Justin Morgan has already had a taste of what every competitive snowboarder strives for.

Over the past couple of weeks, anglers have been flocking to Rockport Reservoir in hopes of hooking into a prize catch of a different kind.

A contest in which tagged fish can be redeemed for cash and prizes has made Rockport one of the area's most popular ice-fishing spots this winter. Anglers by the hundreds have been drilling holes through the reservoir's thick ice in pursuit of the $2,500 top prize.

Recently, wildlife officials tagged and released 28 rainbow trout weighing about 1 1/2 pounds each into the reservoir. Each fish was given a number to correspond with a given prize.

LIBERTY -- Unfortunately, a lack of snowfall means the cancellation this year of what many consider the biggest day in the Top of Utah for cross-country skiing.

However, when the snow eventually does come, the volunteers who run the Nordic skiing operations at North Fork Park say they'll be ready.

Winter Trails Day is a nationwide celebration of trails that gives places like North Fork Park a chance to show off its top-notch system of groomed winter tracks for skiers, with additional trails designated for snowshoeing. But one of the driest Decembers in recent memory and unseasonably warm temperatures in recent weeks have combined to put the kibosh on this year's celebration.

The annual event, originally scheduled for Saturday, is organized primarily by Ogden Nordic, the group that maintains North Fork Park during the winter, and the local nonprofit Weber Pathways. Private businesses also contribute to the cause.

Jim White, director of the master skiing program at Ogden Nordic, said current conditions present a potential safety hazard that has left organizers with no choice but to cancel this year's event. The snowpack is very icy and even dangerous in some spots, White said.

OGDEN — A video in which a Snowbasin ski patroller is seen reprimanding a snowboarder before directing an obscenity toward another guest has gone viral, sparking an online discussion as to whether snowboarders are singled out at ski resorts.

In the video, which was captured and posted Tuesday on vimeo.com, a Snowbasin ski instructor and a ski patroller stop snowboarder Austen Knudson, of Layton, on Bear Hollow, a run that is often crowded because it begins at the bottom of the Middle Bowl area where several runs converge.

SNOWBASIN -- When Nicole Roundy was just eight years old, her family faced a difficult but ultimately necessary decision.

Roundy had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of bone cancer in her right leg, and in order to save her, doctors determined the leg would have to be amputated above the knee.

Fast forward 17 years, and Roundy, now 25, is happy, healthy, and tearing it up on the slopes as one of the top female competitors in the growing world of adaptive snowboarding.

NORTH OGDEN -- As anyone involved will attest to, creating a public trail through a patchwork of private and public property is a complicated and lengthy process in which land and rights-of-way are negotiated one piece at a time.

The recent addition of 200 acres to the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest adjacent to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail serves as a prime example of the range of interests that must come to the table to make trail expansion work.

In a deal brokered by the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, 200 acres of private land next to a half-mile stretch of the BST were recently sold to the U.S. Forest Service for $1.6 million.