Days 12-13: What a weekend!
We knew that the forecast was for cold, so after sushi on Friday night AmyZ came over and we hot waxed with the coldest formula I had.
That turned out to be a good thing, for we each had plenty of glide on Saturday when temperatures reached a high of about 8 dF, which was our big warm-up this week. It started snowing before opening and kept snowing throughout the day. Alta reported 4" of new by closing and that seemed about right for most places other than Catherine's Area, the usual jackpot winner at Alta, where I'd swear that it was around 6". Combine that with the fact that Supreme didn't even start running for the season until Friday and it felt extraordinarily deep and untracked out there.
We arrived on Sunday to another 5-6" of new snow overnight and between 15-20 fewer Fahrenheit degrees on the thermometer. The highest I saw all day at the top was -8 dF. While Saturday was deserted, people showed up in droves today although with that much terrain open we barely stood in a line all day.
Our posse grew exponentially, too, to include not only those who were out on Saturday but also jojo_obrien (he does in fact exist!), Skidog, TheOtherAmy, Corey, Sam, Tiny Tim and Soo. Yes, that makes 11, which is really too large a crowd to contain. That proved itself when we lost Tiny Tim and Soo on the second run, Sam on the third, and jojo_obrien at lunchtime.
That crystal-filled sky that always seems to materialize when it's uber-cold hung tight over the mountain today, revealing sun dogs and some unusual light.
They even let us have the High T today once they finished a protracted round of a.m. bombing, although I'm glad that we caught it early. It was very boney when we went thorugh; I would've hated to have seen it later on in the day, but that run on Thirds was certainly worth the effort that it took to get there.
The biggest hangup today was the cold, but not for the reasons you'd think. I was actually comfortably warm all day, and the only time we went inside at all was for an early lunch at Alf's while we waited for ASP to finish making Catherine's Area safe for us. Rather, it made the snow so damned slow. My cold snow wax didn't help. In untracked, you felt like you were skiing with the parking brake left on. On the groomed, places where you'd normally glide turned into a walk. Getting out of a few key locations turned into a real schlep. It was exhausting, and in combination with beating myself silly on Saturday I called it a day at 1:15 p.m. today.
We knew that the forecast was for cold, so after sushi on Friday night AmyZ came over and we hot waxed with the coldest formula I had.
That turned out to be a good thing, for we each had plenty of glide on Saturday when temperatures reached a high of about 8 dF, which was our big warm-up this week. It started snowing before opening and kept snowing throughout the day. Alta reported 4" of new by closing and that seemed about right for most places other than Catherine's Area, the usual jackpot winner at Alta, where I'd swear that it was around 6". Combine that with the fact that Supreme didn't even start running for the season until Friday and it felt extraordinarily deep and untracked out there.
We arrived on Sunday to another 5-6" of new snow overnight and between 15-20 fewer Fahrenheit degrees on the thermometer. The highest I saw all day at the top was -8 dF. While Saturday was deserted, people showed up in droves today although with that much terrain open we barely stood in a line all day.
Our posse grew exponentially, too, to include not only those who were out on Saturday but also jojo_obrien (he does in fact exist!), Skidog, TheOtherAmy, Corey, Sam, Tiny Tim and Soo. Yes, that makes 11, which is really too large a crowd to contain. That proved itself when we lost Tiny Tim and Soo on the second run, Sam on the third, and jojo_obrien at lunchtime.
That crystal-filled sky that always seems to materialize when it's uber-cold hung tight over the mountain today, revealing sun dogs and some unusual light.
They even let us have the High T today once they finished a protracted round of a.m. bombing, although I'm glad that we caught it early. It was very boney when we went thorugh; I would've hated to have seen it later on in the day, but that run on Thirds was certainly worth the effort that it took to get there.
The biggest hangup today was the cold, but not for the reasons you'd think. I was actually comfortably warm all day, and the only time we went inside at all was for an early lunch at Alf's while we waited for ASP to finish making Catherine's Area safe for us. Rather, it made the snow so damned slow. My cold snow wax didn't help. In untracked, you felt like you were skiing with the parking brake left on. On the groomed, places where you'd normally glide turned into a walk. Getting out of a few key locations turned into a real schlep. It was exhausting, and in combination with beating myself silly on Saturday I called it a day at 1:15 p.m. today.
/ Photo Taken approx 2:00PM Sunday December 8, 2013