Snowbasin and Huntsville, UT, Feb. 3, 2021

Tony Crocker

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Liz was not planning to ski Wednesday with logistics of the NASJA event extending well into the evening in Huntsville. That was for the best as weather at Snowbasin was not good, and Liz needed to start making phone calls to Florida because her mother passed away the previous day. Liz continued with the three ski days in Idaho, and then flew from Boise to Florida on Feb. 8.

Here’s our NASJA group about to leave Ogden in the vans.
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Curtis Fong took the picture: Greg Snow, Ogden host Colt Jarvis, Risa Wyatt, Peter Schroeder, Dan Giesen, Mario Montero and me.

I did get a good overview picture of Snowbasin from Powder Mt. Skylodge on Tuesday.
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The top half of Needles was in pea soup fog. I skied two leisurely runs with Mario Montero, a podcaster from Clearwater. He lived and skied in the Northeast for many years but now lives about 5 miles from Liz’ mother’s home in Florida. We then had lunch in Needles lodge.

When we came out I couldn’t step into one ski and noticed that a ski brake had detached on one of my K2 Recons. This happens 5 days after I pulled an edge out of one of my Blizzard Bonafides? I rode the gondola back down and went into the ski shop. They would not reinsert the ski brake, but they gave me pliers and I was able to straighten the spring loaded prong and insert the brake. At that point the ski tech connected the prong to the brake and I’ve since skied 5 more days on them.

This process consumed at least an hour and I was able to ski just 2 more runs before we left at 3PM. In addition to the fog, Strawberry was closed for wind.

Our first stop in Huntsville was the famed Shooting Star Saloon, which since 1879 is Utah’s oldest continuously operating business.
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This is a real eye catcher when you walk inside.
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This St. Bernard weighed 298 pounds, certified by Guinness Book of World Records.

The ceiling is decorated with an estimated $80,000 in currency.
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We spent the rest of the evening at the Compass Rose, a farmhouse converted to a boutique hotel.
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Note the observatory which was formerly a silo.

We had a buffet dinner in a spacious room with numerous small tables. The Compass Rose has collected an impressive amount of ski memorabilia. This display honors Ogden local Dean Perkins .

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Downhill racing skis:
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At lower right is an Olympic skeleton. It’s about the size of a boogie board though it weighs 90 pounds.

There were also a vintage snowboard and ballet skis
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Our host Dakota Hyde is showing us an original 1936 Sun Valley chairlift.
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Dakota’s real passion is the observatory he operates and helped design. Here is some 19th century astronomy artwork.
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The right picture is a quite famous drawing of the 1878 total solar eclipse in Wyoming. Cameras of that time were not up to the task of representing eclipses so it was common to commission artists instead. The left picture is of a comet in 1881.

Dakota at his computer:
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The pillar at right supports the observatory telescopes and is isolated from the rest of the building.

This is the 16 inch telescope used for photography.
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There are two 8 inch scopes used for direct observation. We were lucky to get better weather here than during the day at Snowbasin.

Compass Rose has two tipis where we relaxed and had smores for dessert.
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Peter Schroeder and Risa Wyatt are here.
 
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