Day 52: Good friends, good weather, good times.
Tony Crocker and his friend Richard both crashed at my place Friday night after arriving in SLC. Both were in town a day early ahead of their stay at the Iron Blosam at Snowbird.
On Saturday we headed to Alta, dropping their stuff off at the condo en route and arriving just in time for our scheduled meeting at Goldminer's Daughter with Bob Dangerous, Marc_C, and friend Patti Mac, who was also in town concluding her visit with one last ski day before catching a redeye Saturday night back to NYC.
We had about four fresh inches of heavy, wet new snow to play in and the skiing was terrific. Any lighter and we would've struck base more often than we did, although the low angle stuff still skied the best in the thin untracked. We minimized our time spent on west-facing aspects that had caught afternoon sun in the preceding days, but where the new snow had been skied prior to Saturday afternoon even the west-facing was good after 2:30 pm or so. We did our best to drag Tony around and hit up first tracks through my favorite stretch of Catherine's Area and skied near-in Patsy Marley in a vertigo-inducing lack of visibility. We watched Bob take in all of Backside in three turns as the rest of us skied Susie's Trees -- I was barely through the first stand before I noticed Bob already far below on the groomer! :shock: We took Tony down through delightful snow in Eagle's Nest to an upscale lunch gathering at Rustler Lodge. As we dined, the skies finally broke and we were bathed in strong afternoon sunshine for the rest of the day. Highlights included a second run through Fred's Trees, more tracked than it was on our first run but still skiing mighty fine.
By 3 pm or so I joined Patti and Marc_C for suds on the Goldminer's sundeck. Richard and Tony eventually joined us as well.
A fine, fine day in Little Cottonwood Canyon!
Tony Crocker and his friend Richard both crashed at my place Friday night after arriving in SLC. Both were in town a day early ahead of their stay at the Iron Blosam at Snowbird.
On Saturday we headed to Alta, dropping their stuff off at the condo en route and arriving just in time for our scheduled meeting at Goldminer's Daughter with Bob Dangerous, Marc_C, and friend Patti Mac, who was also in town concluding her visit with one last ski day before catching a redeye Saturday night back to NYC.
We had about four fresh inches of heavy, wet new snow to play in and the skiing was terrific. Any lighter and we would've struck base more often than we did, although the low angle stuff still skied the best in the thin untracked. We minimized our time spent on west-facing aspects that had caught afternoon sun in the preceding days, but where the new snow had been skied prior to Saturday afternoon even the west-facing was good after 2:30 pm or so. We did our best to drag Tony around and hit up first tracks through my favorite stretch of Catherine's Area and skied near-in Patsy Marley in a vertigo-inducing lack of visibility. We watched Bob take in all of Backside in three turns as the rest of us skied Susie's Trees -- I was barely through the first stand before I noticed Bob already far below on the groomer! :shock: We took Tony down through delightful snow in Eagle's Nest to an upscale lunch gathering at Rustler Lodge. As we dined, the skies finally broke and we were bathed in strong afternoon sunshine for the rest of the day. Highlights included a second run through Fred's Trees, more tracked than it was on our first run but still skiing mighty fine.
By 3 pm or so I joined Patti and Marc_C for suds on the Goldminer's sundeck. Richard and Tony eventually joined us as well.
A fine, fine day in Little Cottonwood Canyon!