Utah 2/27-3/3

[rogerk]

I usually post to a different forum, but since I shared this trip with many who read this forum, I figured I'd do a rare cross-post:

Synopsis:
6 days
5 Powder Days
4 Resorts
~50" of new snow spread over 5 days

Day 1, New Snow =0". Snowbird

I knew I wouldn't be visiting Snowbird on a powder day, so I made it my first stop.

Rushing out of the tram at the top, I realized that the 11,000' altitude had me breathing hard as I clicked in to my bindings. It was at this point I decided that I would take it easy this day, since I knew I had at least a few powder days ahead that I wanted to be fresh for. I chose to head down a groomed Regulator Johnson, which was harder packed than normal due to high winds from the last storm. The combination of very flat light and low oxygen gave me a feeling of vertigo, but since it was an easy groomer I skied all the way to the tram via Harper's Ferry nonstop, and walked right on to the tram.

Thinking I'd find better snow on the other side of the ridge, I dropped into Upper Cirque and then down to the big soft bumps of Lower Silver Fox. The snow was indeed better, so again non-stop. I was breathing hard at the end of that run. So much for taking it easy. And on this run I remembered just how truly steep a mountain Snowbird is. There is nothing like it in the east, and the only place I've skied in the US that's steeper is Jackson Hole.

Steep enough that I backed away from a run for the first time in a long time. Great Scott was steep and rocky, and a fall would have been painful and this was the first day of vacation and I didn't need to be in pain from falling on rocks. Funny thing is that if this were at my home mountain this season, I would have skied it but, knowing that there were better snow conditions ahead, I backed away and chose another way down to the tram, where there was still no line.

And so it went for 7 tram rides and 3 rides up Gad 2. That's somewhere near 25,000 vertical on the first day of vacation. My body was about to be pounded into submission.


To be continued....

 

[rogerk]

Day 2, Tuesday, Alta

7" new in the morning, 16" total by day's end

Skied all day with an amorphous group of 2-15 people that included the Bauman clan, Admin and many of his friends.

Met Admin at the Park and Ride and got up to the Wildcat lift in time to be up on it within the first 5 minutes of the day. With the Bauman clan along for the ride we rushed towards the Rock Gully and Wildcat Face areas. As we skied along we split apart, choosing our own preferred lines down the various gullies in the area.

11 year old Patrick B was following me as we participated in the typical Alta powder frenzy. 3/4 of the way down, we both stopped and he said to me, "This is tiring."

"Yeah," I replied, "but keep going. We rest on the chairlift." And he did. The Bauman boys are amazing and will not slow down a group.

On the second run, Jim B and I chose to go down Bear Paw, right under the lift, as it seemed lightly tracked. Admin warned us that the rock band at the top of it had not really filled in yet and that we should be cautious, but we found that the rocks we hit were no worse than the typical rocks a Smuggs skier MUST hit to get to some of the goods.

After two runs on Wildcat, we began to experience the yinyang of Alta: ridiculous traverses to reach ridiculously good snow. We took three runs down the Greeley Bowl/Hill area. The lower-angled terrain was the perfect place to be as the new-snow depth was not yet at 12" and base could still be felt on steeper terrain. The lightly tracked runs were sublime.

The traverses were not, and the Alta-Tude certainly wasn't. At one point, I had pulled off above the traverse which was at least 8 feet wide in that spot. My left pole was touching the edge of the traverse. Sure enough some "local" comes buy and swings his pole full force at my pole, wrenching my arm and shoulder. As if I were slowing him down or he couldn't easily avoid me.

Late in the day, we did 3 great runs in a part of Alta that was always closed when I lived in UT in the 90's. 3 excellent bus runs, each with plenty of untracked powder, the last one including a classic western chute.

This was a good day, that many locals were calling the best of the season, and I thought would be hard to beat. Until...

To be continued

 

[rogerk]

Day 3, Solitude, 1" overnight

You might think that with only one inch overnight, this would not have been a magnificent day. But then I'd say you don't know Solitude. Having worked for Solitude my first year in UT, I know it extremely well, and knew it would be stellar.

I arrived at Solitude with Rob W., my main partner-in-crime in SLC throughout the '90s. Rob is the kind of athlete who performs at top levels in every sport he tries, no matter how long he's been on the couch: climbing 5.12, boating class V, running and biking long distances, surfing big waves. This day he would be locking his heels down for the first time since putting on leathers in the '80s.

Text-message plans were made to meet the Baumans at the Powderhorn lift. Rob and I rode up the Eagle Express, planning to scoot quickly down to the meeting spot. But something I had expected to happen did happen, and we never made it to the meeting spot. The Gate of Navarone had opened. Someone had gone right. Rob and I went 10 yards left and dropped some six or seven hundred vertical feet without seeing another track. We quickly hopped on the Honeycomb Return lift and called Jim, apologized, informed him that he needed to meet us at the top of Eagle Express and promised him it would be worth it. Rob and I bombed down my favorite cruiser in the world,Challenger, made all the much better when covered with lightly tracked snow, and then we headed up the Eagle Express to meet the Baumans.

Rob had expressed concern that he was taking a sick day off to ski and would be skiing with 3 young kids. I told him not to worry. We met the Baumans, headed through the gate, went 20 yards farther left(our tracks still being the only ones here) and told the Baumans to have at it. Another 700 verts of steep slope without seeing another track, this time with the Baumans hooting all the way down. Rob remarked that there would be no way to lose a kid with all the hooting.

Next up was the Powderhorn gate. One time left to Black Forest, one time right to Here Be Dragons, both times to 700 verts of almost untouched powder.

I'd heard on Monday that the boys had enjoyed some chutes that Admin had shown them, so I decided to show them one of my favorites. Parachute holds a special place in my ski consciousness. There are several choke points that are no more than 2-3 ski widths wide, and 3/4 of the way down it makes a 90 degree left turn. When I moved to Utah, I could only ski it with a lot of sideslipping. I worked on that run over and over until I could ski it with style. Today, it is so etched into my memory that I can picture every turn in it even though it had been 5 years since I last skied it. I gave the Baumans instructions to follow the funnel down into the first choke point, so that I didn't have to worry about the boys discovering any of the many cliffs littering that side of the mountain. At the 90 degree turn, one of the boys asked if it was possible to go straight. Rob replied "You can, but I wouldn't. There's cliffs." You can guess which way the Bauman boys went.

From there we went up to the summit and traversed/hiked out to Buckeye Junior in Honeycomb. At this point Daniel had a little breakdown. I don't know if he was crying because he was cold or didn't want to hike, but Jim & Kathleen said it was really caused by the fact that he refuses to eat breakfast. I pointed Kathleen and Daniel downhill sooner than the planned destination and. figuring it best that they had someone who knew the terrain with them, I went along. And whaddya know, the three of us had another 700 verts of untouched powder.

It was a bit past noon, and time to split up from the Baumans. Rob and I had some hiking plans up to a place I'd rather not name in a public forum. We did three runs. On the first run we dropped the left side of the ridge, a different aspect from what we'd skied all day, and found the lightest snow of the day. I'd forgotten to put my neck gaiter up and found myself choking in the type of snow ski magazines have taught us to fantasize about. Second run, we dropped the longer vertical on the right side of the ridge. Rob let me go first and the steep chute and lower bowl gave me the run that I will dream about in August; the deep snow a consistent platform for every perfect, rhythmic turn. The third run, we headed left a bit lower down the ridge, finding a chute that neither of us had skied before, not knowing whether to delight more in yet another stellar untracked run or in the fact that we were still coming upon new finds in an area we knew so well.

By this point, it was clear that this was the best day of my year. It was past 2:30, and I had to call it quits, knowing that Wednesday would be yet another powder day and I wanted to have some energy left for it.

To be continued...