Snowbird, UT 5/30/2016 Closing day

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Day 73: Skiing on Memorial Day beats playing horseshoes at a BBQ. And it definitely beats golf.

Snowbird enjoyed gorgeous weather for today's last day. Bored by skiing the same limited offerings at Snowbird for several weeks now, Bobby Danger and AmyZ opted to skin at Alta today. Telejon headed to the desert for mountain biking. Skidog was canyoneering with Todd. Corey and TheOtherAmy have been MIA for several weeks now. I headed to Snowbird with nextdoor neighbor Anant, and we hooked up with Evan while we were there.

We skied for about 2.5 hours. Late in the morning it started getting busier and a line formed at Little Cloud. The snow also started getting stickier, so we quit just before noon to share a beer in the parking lot as the sun blazed down.

I now think that I'm done for the season. I could continue backcountry skiing but sun cups have started to form off the groomers, which is usually my signal to pack it in until next winter.


Riding Gad 2.


Anant and I ventured out to lower Nirvana again, but today we did so too early and it was still too firm. Also, last weekend's smooth goodness has been replaced by sun cups starting to form. It was a rough ride.


Skiing back to Gadzoom at the base required some major league snow farming.


The line starts to form at Little Cloud.


Evan dressed in the holiday spirit. (photo: Evan Thayer)


Mark Malou Fork


Mark Malou Fork


Mark Malou Fork, with the Rasta Chutes and Pipeline Bowl beyond.


It was toasty warm in the parking lot.


In celebration of another season.
 
Well, I can confirm that upslope makes some pretty good brews... And its within walking distance of my office.
 
egieszl":3da9n518 said:
What was the story about this year's spring operations at Snowbird? No Tram?
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No Tram -- they're replacing the track cables this spring. That also meant no Peruvian Gulch access, and they weren't even allowing anyone out the Cirque Traverse out of concern that someone would violate the ban on Peruvian access. What's inexplicable is that without any warning they took Mineral Basin off the spring skiing list, too.
 
Marc_C":3fx4cc66 said:
Admin":3fx4cc66 said:
What's inexplicable is that without any warning they took Mineral Basin off the spring skiing list, too.
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Didn't someone duck a rope-line somewhere and go down the Peruvian Gulch side?

Edit: found the mention: http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12146#p76026
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That's the rumor, and while I have no reason to doubt get_outside I should say that I've never had that confirmed. However, there's still no explanation for why, after Mineral closed for two weekends in a row in April, Snowbird suddenly came out and said, "Uh, by the way, we're not going to reopen Mineral at all this season." This caught a lot of people by surprise. By contrast the cable work on the Tram was announced well in advance. Mineral has long been a fixture of Snowbird's extended spring season, and in-bounds Gad 2 (all gates remained closed all spring) is no substitute for losing Mineral Basin as it adds only a couple of hundred acres that aren't accessible from Gadzoom or Little Cloud. Had I been one of those who coughed up over $300 in March for a spring pass, I would've been justifiably pissed as based on past practices I would have had every reason to expect that Mineral Basin would've been open, not to mention the fact that the Gad Chutes, Lone Pine, South Chute, Wilbere Bowl, Mach Schnell, etc. were also all off-limits.

I went to Snowbird a total of three times after Alta closed for the season, and frankly had I gone any more often I would've been bored out of my mind by the limited terrain options. As it was, even those three times I went I couldn't stay more than a few hours before boredom set in.
 
I agree with admin's analysis above. It confirms what I've noted since 2011: spring ski customers are very low on Snowbird management's priority list. It's not just my hometown Mammoth experience here. A-Basin for example clearly cares much more than Snowbird about spring skiing. Even the notorious Powdr Corp has returned Killington's spring skiing close to it's historical level and reversed some of its previous spring cutbacks at Mt. Bachelor.

Anyone who knew about the tram cable replacement in advance should have been very reluctant to buy a Snowbird spring pass in 2016.
 
On Snowbird's Facebook page on May 6 they said "Due to unforeseen changes in the Tram track cable replacement project we are not able to re-open Mineral Basin this season. We need to use the top of the lift as an equipment anchor as we replace each of the four cables, which weigh 54 tons each."

A week later they posted (in response to question) that MCP extra days were $30. I wonder if that means that Alta did not get a cut as MCP FAQs say that you pay 1/2 of the combined ticket which does not seem fair after Alta closes. When I asked MCP they said that's the way it is.
 
I was never able to observe any indication that they were using Mineral Basin Express as an anchor. That's not to say that it didn't happen, I just never saw any sign of activity there.
 
Admin":brj253yc said:
I was never able to observe any indication that they were using Mineral Basin Express as an anchor. That's not to say that it didn't happen, I just never saw any sign of activity there.
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Did you go above the top of the Little Cloud lift? Meaning, it's kinda hard to see what's going on at the summit from there.
 
Admin":1ciiuqi9 said:
You can still see.
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What? Anchor cables on the ground?
You can't even see the top of the tram or MBX from the top of LC. At least not completely enough to see if it was being used as an anchor point.
 
I completely disagree. When one stands at the Mineral rope line the ridge curves sufficiently. We weren't allowed to hike above LC even if we wanted to.
 
While Admin went for 2.5 hrs on the final day, I instead got around to installing.....
<an image that exceeds the 2MB file size limit on FTO>
2MB???
Most all smartphones today generate image files between 3 - 8MB, possibly more. Like the image size limitations discussed in another thread, the file size limit is now circa 2002.
 
Marc_C":2nv2i4h1 said:
While Admin went for 2.5 hrs on the final day, I instead got around to installing.....
<an image that exceeds the 2MB file size limit on FTO>
2MB???
Most all smartphones today generate image files between 3 - 8MB, possibly more. Like the image size limitations discussed in another thread, the file size limit is now circa 2002.
Click to expand...

+1
Tony Crocker":2nv2i4h1 said:
The old pixel limit was 1024. Silly me, I assumed the new one was 2048. My recent TR failed to upload pics at 2040. I resized those, tried again with another FAIL, found a cropped pic at 1026, cut that one and finally succeeded. This was not a fun exercise at 1AM.

A few comments:
1) When you load pics and one of them is too big, the ENTIRE UPLOAD FAILS! Why don't the properly sized pics load and only the too big one fail? Hunting down the culprit(s) is much more tedious when you don't know which or how many pics failed.
2) Surely Moore's Law applies to server storage these days. Other Forums will accept any size pics.
3) As far as cost of server space is concerned, the FTO Forums aren't exactly overrun with posts these days. The cost saving of whatever the picture limit is must be trivial at the current level of traffic.
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Tony Crocker":1zvhkq5m said:
Marc_C":1zvhkq5m said:
While Admin went for 2.5 hrs on the final day, I instead got around to installing.....
<an image that exceeds the 2MB file size limit on FTO>
2MB???
Most all smartphones today generate image files between 3 - 8MB, possibly more. Like the image size limitations discussed in another thread, the file size limit is now circa 2002.
Click to expand...

+1
Click to expand...
Frankly it makes me reluctant to post any photos because of the extra work involved that I don't need to do on other discussion forums.
 
Last time I checked restrictions were lifted. There's gotta be something hidden somewhere, I'll look around.
 
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