The last day of the road trip, 16 out of 17 days skiing, was the best one for me. We parked on the bypass road and got to the tram by 9:15 or so. It was a sunny day but windy at the top. The wind was upslope so not kind to the usually soft runs like Upper Silver Fox and the Upper Cirque as I found with a quick test off the catwalk to Chip's Run. Next tram we headed to the Regulator side and found more of the same up high, though soft turns could be had under the lower third of the Little Cloud chair.
Before our second run we had checked with ski patrol about Mineral Basin, which is where the wind was blowing the snow. They said half an hour, so we decided to wait for the rope drop after riding Little Cloud.
Our timing was good, no more than 5 minutes wait for the ~10AM opening. I dropped off the road toward the gun tower, making long turns at a brisk pace on mostly windpacked snow. Next two runs I dropped through the north gate of Mineral Basin and above the Peruvian tunnel where there was more powder. At the bottom I spied AmyZ and rdwore at the Baldy chair and joined them for the next few runs.
We alternated chairs, checking at the top of Baldy to view progress on Alta's backside. Soon jojo_obrien joined us.
He had been a few minutes behind me for the Mineral rope drop. The line at Mineral never built past 5 minutes, so we hung around awhile, still finding decent powder around Chamonix Bowl and in some less obvious stashes lower down.
I left messages for Liz to join us when we moved to Alta. She had 3 nice runs in Mineral before going over there. The 4 of us skied through the gate and along the EBT where we met Skidog at noon at the top of Collins. I raved about how great Highboy had been at the end of Monday so we went out there to check it out. I had some concern about the upslope wind, but no, conditions were just as fabulous as the day before and we all skied it nonstop.
So like yesterday we went for an encore before lunch, this time with Liz included. I followed the precise entry path admin had chosen Monday, but Liz still had some trouble getting onto the final traverse out of the trees. But once into Highboy proper she skied it fluidly in the hero snow. I skied nonstop again, got out the camera and she was already most of the way down.
My intention today was to show Mike Bernstein around Snowbird. Unfortunately he left his ticket at Amy's and had to drive down there to retrieve it. He was thus on his own, got a few runs in Mineral Basin coming from Alta, then finally met us as we were finishing lunch at Goldminer's well after 2PM.
Mike, Liz and I headed out while Amy was working and I think the rest of the crew had dispersed. We concentrated on getting over to Snowbird, and I thought Keyhole would be the most "interesting" route to show Mike.
The crux just below me was very narrow with some rocks to step over. Since we didn't know about coverage in advance we sent Liz on the traverse through Wildcat, where she scored an untracked condo run. Finishing on that high note, she skied to Christy's for a final boot adjustment. We neglected to note that Backside at Alta had finally opened. #-o Amy got 2 runs over there in the powder corridors between much avalanche debris.
Mike and I went up Peruvian and took lower traverses on Baldy, eventually emerging through the trees in the vicinity of Shot 20. From there we headed to Gadzoom, where we were held up by an anal liftie when Mike's upgrade ticket didn't scan properly. Mike had to go into the Creekside office, found nobody there and we finally boarded Gadzoom when the lifties went off duty at 3:30. More IT issues at Snowbird. :-k
We barely made it to Little Cloud, and I had assumed we would probably take a final run through the Cirque somewhere. But to our surprise we noticed that Road to Provo had opened. It was deserted, and following the roller coaster ride out we soon found out why. Little Cloud Bowl, Mark Malu, all the drops off the Rasta traverse had an icy rime crust, presumably from the strong winds overnight. We only saw deeper powder tracks at the far end of the traverse, so we went all the way out there. The upper section had a thinner zipper crust to ski better. From there I hung a left to get on the Bass Benches. Mike following me there.
The last pitch below me finally had fluffy powder with no crust.
By doing this run we were potentially looking at a walk up the Bypass Road to my car, but we squeaked onto Peruvian chair with just seconds to spare before its 4PM close. We traversed into Silver Fox and worked our way into this bowl under the tram where I knew we would find sheltered snow.
The last traverse in there was very rocky though. We found more soft snow in the tree below Bass Blvd. and smooth windbuff on Anderson's Hill before skiing the Blackjack road to the car.
27,600 vertical for the day with 7K of powder. \
/
Before our second run we had checked with ski patrol about Mineral Basin, which is where the wind was blowing the snow. They said half an hour, so we decided to wait for the rope drop after riding Little Cloud.
Our timing was good, no more than 5 minutes wait for the ~10AM opening. I dropped off the road toward the gun tower, making long turns at a brisk pace on mostly windpacked snow. Next two runs I dropped through the north gate of Mineral Basin and above the Peruvian tunnel where there was more powder. At the bottom I spied AmyZ and rdwore at the Baldy chair and joined them for the next few runs.
We alternated chairs, checking at the top of Baldy to view progress on Alta's backside. Soon jojo_obrien joined us.
He had been a few minutes behind me for the Mineral rope drop. The line at Mineral never built past 5 minutes, so we hung around awhile, still finding decent powder around Chamonix Bowl and in some less obvious stashes lower down.
I left messages for Liz to join us when we moved to Alta. She had 3 nice runs in Mineral before going over there. The 4 of us skied through the gate and along the EBT where we met Skidog at noon at the top of Collins. I raved about how great Highboy had been at the end of Monday so we went out there to check it out. I had some concern about the upslope wind, but no, conditions were just as fabulous as the day before and we all skied it nonstop.
So like yesterday we went for an encore before lunch, this time with Liz included. I followed the precise entry path admin had chosen Monday, but Liz still had some trouble getting onto the final traverse out of the trees. But once into Highboy proper she skied it fluidly in the hero snow. I skied nonstop again, got out the camera and she was already most of the way down.
My intention today was to show Mike Bernstein around Snowbird. Unfortunately he left his ticket at Amy's and had to drive down there to retrieve it. He was thus on his own, got a few runs in Mineral Basin coming from Alta, then finally met us as we were finishing lunch at Goldminer's well after 2PM.
Mike, Liz and I headed out while Amy was working and I think the rest of the crew had dispersed. We concentrated on getting over to Snowbird, and I thought Keyhole would be the most "interesting" route to show Mike.
The crux just below me was very narrow with some rocks to step over. Since we didn't know about coverage in advance we sent Liz on the traverse through Wildcat, where she scored an untracked condo run. Finishing on that high note, she skied to Christy's for a final boot adjustment. We neglected to note that Backside at Alta had finally opened. #-o Amy got 2 runs over there in the powder corridors between much avalanche debris.
Mike and I went up Peruvian and took lower traverses on Baldy, eventually emerging through the trees in the vicinity of Shot 20. From there we headed to Gadzoom, where we were held up by an anal liftie when Mike's upgrade ticket didn't scan properly. Mike had to go into the Creekside office, found nobody there and we finally boarded Gadzoom when the lifties went off duty at 3:30. More IT issues at Snowbird. :-k
We barely made it to Little Cloud, and I had assumed we would probably take a final run through the Cirque somewhere. But to our surprise we noticed that Road to Provo had opened. It was deserted, and following the roller coaster ride out we soon found out why. Little Cloud Bowl, Mark Malu, all the drops off the Rasta traverse had an icy rime crust, presumably from the strong winds overnight. We only saw deeper powder tracks at the far end of the traverse, so we went all the way out there. The upper section had a thinner zipper crust to ski better. From there I hung a left to get on the Bass Benches. Mike following me there.
The last pitch below me finally had fluffy powder with no crust.
By doing this run we were potentially looking at a walk up the Bypass Road to my car, but we squeaked onto Peruvian chair with just seconds to spare before its 4PM close. We traversed into Silver Fox and worked our way into this bowl under the tram where I knew we would find sheltered snow.
The last traverse in there was very rocky though. We found more soft snow in the tree below Bass Blvd. and smooth windbuff on Anderson's Hill before skiing the Blackjack road to the car.
27,600 vertical for the day with 7K of powder. \
/