Snowbird, UT 2-26-16

EMSC

Well-known member
Super warm.

For day #2 of the annual guys trip we had a clear split in opinion with 3 of us heading to the Bird and 6 staying at PCMR for a 2nd day. The day dawned bright and not particularly cold with bluebird skies. By the time we made it up the canyon, parked and shuttled in to the tram base there was a surprisingly long tram line. So we opted to to go up Peruvian and through the tunnel to mineral basin hoping the south exposure would already be turning. The first few hundred verts were actually still winter snow before becoming rock solid. We opted to traverse to a groomer where Jeff C promptly crashed hard... on his face. While we didn't see any blood, he said he tasted a bit from his lip. He also jammed his thumb pretty badly, with it eventually swelling up quite a bit. Why is this detail important?

There is long story behind it, but there is an annual crash award trophy that gets voted on the final evening for best crash or compilation of crashes. This would be the primary injury in the compilation of 3 crashes by Jeff C. Though there were enough other crashes by others that the other Jeff G only escaped victory by one vote.

At any rate we went up Mineral and then started skiing some of the good steeps on the front side. The favorite on the day was upper silver Fox though we also did Great Scott, the bony traverse to ski Daltons Draw (way too long and bony). We did lunch at the Hidden peak restaurant (seems like a lot of wasted space by not having a full sized 2nd story). After lunch we did one run back into Mineral basin which had fully softened in the super warm temps. But then we went back tot he same variations on the front side. We had 6 Tram laps in total with 3 of those where not only was there no line, but timed perfectly so that we walked through the RFID scanners to walk on as the last people to board the tram.

Interestingly, we never did venture into the Gad Valley side of the Bird. We took a solidly good winter snow/chalk and nice pitch and stuck with it for the most part. Can't remember the last time I ever sweat so much while skiing in February. I actually took a small bit of video at the bottom of silver fox steeps.

Image00032.jpg


Image00033.jpg


Image00034.jpg


Image00035.jpg


Image00036.jpg


Image00038.jpg


Image00039.jpg


Image00042.jpg


Image00043.jpg


Image00044.jpg


Image00046.jpg


[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HvpKynv_ac[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGo4Dz0Uenk[/video]
 
Back
Top