Day 44: What a difference a day makes.
Funny things happen to the snowpack around here sometimes. The best that Tele Jon and I can figure, the few inches of new, dry snow sucked the moisture out of the refrozen crap beneath. He had horror stories to tell from yesterday similar to mine from The Canyons, but somehow overnight the Wasatch worked its magic. Sure, sounds coming from Little Cloud Bowl beneath the chair made my teeth hurt, but there were places to avoid the stuff and hunt down surprisingly good turns.
Jon and I started out the day at GMD at Alta. It was, to use an overused phrase, "bluebird" yet brutally cold this morning, somewhere around 10 degrees or so. In a sick sort of way I was pleased for it gave me a chance to try out a new 850-fill down sweater from Brooks-Range underneath my shell. (Great item, BTW...more later.) We headed straight for the sunny side of the street for some fast but very edgeable groomers on Sugarloaf, from which we witnessed Bobby Danger do a 45 mph death sideslip down Extrovert as he figured out what some visitors below were going to do. We waited for him at the top of the lift.
He was heading for Snowbird to meet up with Colin, Abby and rdd01, so we cruised together down the Baldy Express side of Mineral and up the MBE.
While Bobby said that he was meeting the others on the Tram Plaza we'll be darned if we ever saw them down there. Giving up, Jon and I grabbed a bucket and headed up. We were en route back to Alta, but as the Tram neared the summit dock my phone rang. It was rfarren, and he and his father were on Gadzoom. We hatched plans to meet up at Little Cloud, and Jon and I avoided the Regulator Johnson death slide and instead wound our way down via Mark Malou Fork.
We somehow bumped into Bobby Danger again atop Little Cloud, this time with Colin, Abby and rdd01 in tow. I tried my best to get Bobby over to the Bass Benches, without success. I relented and we headed for the Mid-Cirque, finding wonderful soft, loose snow all the way down to Chip's. Somewhere along the way rfarren's father disappeared. We traversed across Anderson's to ski Anderson's Trees, bidding the others farewell as we headed down to reconvene with rfarren's father at Creekside, but en route we hatched another plan to head to the Bass Benches after all.
This was the first of our two runs of the day, finding boot-top untracked atop supportable, edgeable crust at the end of one of those traverses and sidestep climbs that Snowbird doesn't have. :roll:
By now it was warming quickly. rfarren returned to Creekside to rejoin his father while Jon and I headed back up Little Cloud, delaying our return to Alta for one more trip out the Bass Benches before heading out Path to Paradise and onto Toad Hill for some lightly tracked over there. Back up Baldy Express we spotted Craig Gordon's signature in the snowpack beneath Livin' The Dream before we also noticed that they'd opened Baldy.
Somehow, Baldy didn't seem like the choice today, perhaps best reserved for tomorrow when things warm more and soften further -- an opinion borne out by the looks of folks cautiously skiing Main Chute, Little Chute and Perla's. Jon declared the snow on Harold's, however, far superior to that during yesterday's scratch-fest. We were joined during lunch at GMD by Marc_C, arriving at the alpine early start of 2 p.m., and the three of us headed out -- this time with me sans mid-layer in the warm sun -- for a few cruisers on Supreme.
Jon and I finished up the day with an even better trip down Harold's and quit at 3:30 as Marc_C trudged on. Tomorrow should bring another big warmup, and I promise to bring a real camera this time.
Funny things happen to the snowpack around here sometimes. The best that Tele Jon and I can figure, the few inches of new, dry snow sucked the moisture out of the refrozen crap beneath. He had horror stories to tell from yesterday similar to mine from The Canyons, but somehow overnight the Wasatch worked its magic. Sure, sounds coming from Little Cloud Bowl beneath the chair made my teeth hurt, but there were places to avoid the stuff and hunt down surprisingly good turns.
Jon and I started out the day at GMD at Alta. It was, to use an overused phrase, "bluebird" yet brutally cold this morning, somewhere around 10 degrees or so. In a sick sort of way I was pleased for it gave me a chance to try out a new 850-fill down sweater from Brooks-Range underneath my shell. (Great item, BTW...more later.) We headed straight for the sunny side of the street for some fast but very edgeable groomers on Sugarloaf, from which we witnessed Bobby Danger do a 45 mph death sideslip down Extrovert as he figured out what some visitors below were going to do. We waited for him at the top of the lift.
He was heading for Snowbird to meet up with Colin, Abby and rdd01, so we cruised together down the Baldy Express side of Mineral and up the MBE.
While Bobby said that he was meeting the others on the Tram Plaza we'll be darned if we ever saw them down there. Giving up, Jon and I grabbed a bucket and headed up. We were en route back to Alta, but as the Tram neared the summit dock my phone rang. It was rfarren, and he and his father were on Gadzoom. We hatched plans to meet up at Little Cloud, and Jon and I avoided the Regulator Johnson death slide and instead wound our way down via Mark Malou Fork.
We somehow bumped into Bobby Danger again atop Little Cloud, this time with Colin, Abby and rdd01 in tow. I tried my best to get Bobby over to the Bass Benches, without success. I relented and we headed for the Mid-Cirque, finding wonderful soft, loose snow all the way down to Chip's. Somewhere along the way rfarren's father disappeared. We traversed across Anderson's to ski Anderson's Trees, bidding the others farewell as we headed down to reconvene with rfarren's father at Creekside, but en route we hatched another plan to head to the Bass Benches after all.
This was the first of our two runs of the day, finding boot-top untracked atop supportable, edgeable crust at the end of one of those traverses and sidestep climbs that Snowbird doesn't have. :roll:
By now it was warming quickly. rfarren returned to Creekside to rejoin his father while Jon and I headed back up Little Cloud, delaying our return to Alta for one more trip out the Bass Benches before heading out Path to Paradise and onto Toad Hill for some lightly tracked over there. Back up Baldy Express we spotted Craig Gordon's signature in the snowpack beneath Livin' The Dream before we also noticed that they'd opened Baldy.
Somehow, Baldy didn't seem like the choice today, perhaps best reserved for tomorrow when things warm more and soften further -- an opinion borne out by the looks of folks cautiously skiing Main Chute, Little Chute and Perla's. Jon declared the snow on Harold's, however, far superior to that during yesterday's scratch-fest. We were joined during lunch at GMD by Marc_C, arriving at the alpine early start of 2 p.m., and the three of us headed out -- this time with me sans mid-layer in the warm sun -- for a few cruisers on Supreme.
Jon and I finished up the day with an even better trip down Harold's and quit at 3:30 as Marc_C trudged on. Tomorrow should bring another big warmup, and I promise to bring a real camera this time.
