Day 47: Holy heat wave, Batman!
It's not every day in March that you take your boots off in the parking lot in a T-shirt, then hop in the truck and turn on the a/c to cool down before leaving the ski area.
But that was yesterday at Snowbasin, as Ski Utah held its annual gathering for local members of the media. As luck would have it I also got to make some turns once again this season with dear friend Colleen, who for the past several years after moving to Layton has been a Snowbasin season pass holder.
After a continental breakfast in the Huntington Room of Earl's Lodge, the Ski Utah group headed out to Strawberry, where the corn was already soft and ripe for ripping non-stop high speed arcs from the top of Needles to the bottom of Strawberry Gondola. While riding the lift we hatched a plan to ski DeMoisey Bowl, but when we arrived atop the bootpack we found that the traverse around the back side of DeMoisey Peak had already melted out. Who cares? We'll walk! Well, everyone but Colleen and her friend Rob from Atlanta -- they took the groomer down. The rest of us precariously balanced ourselves high above Ogden far below for a four-minute walk to our return to snow back at the ridgeline above DeMoisey Bowl.
DeMoisey bowl was a whole lot better than we'd had a right to expect. While the steepest north-facing chute was a bit hard and crunchy, by wrapping around slightly to a northeasterly aspect we found soft, chalky, winter-like snow.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPLeid1ibzQ[/video]
(Video by Tommy Kirchhoff)
We then loaded Porcupine to harvest more corn.
We reconnected with Colleen and Rob, and several of us returned to Demoisey Bowl for a second lap, joined this time by Colleen, Rob, Joni of Alta Lodge and Diane of KUER radio. After dropping in at a similar location, this time we traversed hard right to reach the north-facing apron below Lone Pine, which was soft and smooth, topped by about 4" of cold, dry, winter snow. This was clearly the run of the day!
By this time, however, it was time to venture back to Earl's Lodge for lunch, followed by the day's guest speaker, Laynee Jones, the Program Director for Mountain Accord. Evan Thayer of Wasatch Snow Forecast was awarded Weather Enthusiast of the Year, Annie Cutler of Fox 13 was named Social Media Influencer of the Year, while Curtis Ray of ABC 4 nabbed Journalist of the Year.
Most folks split after lunch, while I headed back for one more trip through DeMoisey Bowl accompanied by freelancer friend Jill and her daughter Sage. By now, lower Strawberry was turning into glue. It seemed that we were now the only folks skiing over there, and the lifties at the base sunned themselves during the five minutes that I waited for Jill and Sage with absolutely no one else arriving at the gondola. While DeMoisey itself was nowhere close to being as good as it was before lunch, it still delivered some mighty fine skiing. We skied through fields of white Velcro all the way back to the base and called it quits at around 2:30, when it was already well into the 60s at the base.
Only after I got home did I learn that Bobby Danger was there all day!
In sum, the bottom 25% of Snowbasin has already melted out, such that anything that didn't have manmade snow on it this season is now pretty much bare ground. However, the upper mountain should remain well-covered for the next two weeks until the resort's scheduled closing day. There's still some exceptional skiing to be had!
It's not every day in March that you take your boots off in the parking lot in a T-shirt, then hop in the truck and turn on the a/c to cool down before leaving the ski area.
But that was yesterday at Snowbasin, as Ski Utah held its annual gathering for local members of the media. As luck would have it I also got to make some turns once again this season with dear friend Colleen, who for the past several years after moving to Layton has been a Snowbasin season pass holder.
After a continental breakfast in the Huntington Room of Earl's Lodge, the Ski Utah group headed out to Strawberry, where the corn was already soft and ripe for ripping non-stop high speed arcs from the top of Needles to the bottom of Strawberry Gondola. While riding the lift we hatched a plan to ski DeMoisey Bowl, but when we arrived atop the bootpack we found that the traverse around the back side of DeMoisey Peak had already melted out. Who cares? We'll walk! Well, everyone but Colleen and her friend Rob from Atlanta -- they took the groomer down. The rest of us precariously balanced ourselves high above Ogden far below for a four-minute walk to our return to snow back at the ridgeline above DeMoisey Bowl.
DeMoisey bowl was a whole lot better than we'd had a right to expect. While the steepest north-facing chute was a bit hard and crunchy, by wrapping around slightly to a northeasterly aspect we found soft, chalky, winter-like snow.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPLeid1ibzQ[/video]
(Video by Tommy Kirchhoff)
We then loaded Porcupine to harvest more corn.
We reconnected with Colleen and Rob, and several of us returned to Demoisey Bowl for a second lap, joined this time by Colleen, Rob, Joni of Alta Lodge and Diane of KUER radio. After dropping in at a similar location, this time we traversed hard right to reach the north-facing apron below Lone Pine, which was soft and smooth, topped by about 4" of cold, dry, winter snow. This was clearly the run of the day!
By this time, however, it was time to venture back to Earl's Lodge for lunch, followed by the day's guest speaker, Laynee Jones, the Program Director for Mountain Accord. Evan Thayer of Wasatch Snow Forecast was awarded Weather Enthusiast of the Year, Annie Cutler of Fox 13 was named Social Media Influencer of the Year, while Curtis Ray of ABC 4 nabbed Journalist of the Year.
Most folks split after lunch, while I headed back for one more trip through DeMoisey Bowl accompanied by freelancer friend Jill and her daughter Sage. By now, lower Strawberry was turning into glue. It seemed that we were now the only folks skiing over there, and the lifties at the base sunned themselves during the five minutes that I waited for Jill and Sage with absolutely no one else arriving at the gondola. While DeMoisey itself was nowhere close to being as good as it was before lunch, it still delivered some mighty fine skiing. We skied through fields of white Velcro all the way back to the base and called it quits at around 2:30, when it was already well into the 60s at the base.
Only after I got home did I learn that Bobby Danger was there all day!
In sum, the bottom 25% of Snowbasin has already melted out, such that anything that didn't have manmade snow on it this season is now pretty much bare ground. However, the upper mountain should remain well-covered for the next two weeks until the resort's scheduled closing day. There's still some exceptional skiing to be had!
