Day 99: Juneuary.
This string of weather we're having is nothing short of incredible and today that meant fresh snowfall just three days shy of the summer solstice.Today is setting a record for both the coldest and wettest June 19th in Salt Lake City history. It's pouring down here in the Valley by Utah standards, but it's snowing up high.
Lots of "Gee, I'm not too sure about this..." comments were exchanged amongst friends and strangers alike as we booted up in the rain in the parking lot. Telejon wasn't even sure that they'd open today. Really, how many times do you see this in Utah?
Telejon, Bobby Danger and I boarded the first tram of the day with only 16 others (and about half of us know each other as regulars) and there wouldn't be many more on the hill the whole morning. As if by magic, however, the rain turned to snow between Tram towers 1 and 2 and the snow never let up in intensity. We had a good 2-3 inches already, even more in some places by mid-morning and in part due to the coating of wet snow, and probably because it also started as rain last night the base never froze solid. This meant that we had a creamy surface atop a supportable yet spongy base. For the third week of June it skied remarkably well.
With such a small clientele we never skied tracked snow all day. Around 10 a.m. they closed the Tram because the wet haul cable was slipping, so those of us already on the hill riding the Mineral Basin Express and Little Cloud chairs were the only ones there. All three of us in our group, however, were soaked right through -- my pants (I should've worn my hard shells), Bobby's pants and the back of Jon's neck and shoulders.
We probably had a half dozen or more runs by the time we made our last run down Jaws. Untracked and smooth, I dropped in first when the whole hill gave way on my first turn, cleaning all of the new snow out of Jaws. That stuff was heavy and it took all I could do to get out of the moving slope after my own sluff caught up to me and started to take me for a ride. The same thing happened to both Bobby and Telejon as we each skied a different line in the Upper Cirque.
By the time I reached the base the snow level had arrived there as well. Even though the snowfall shows no sign of relenting (they're now expecting about a foot or so by the time it's done tonight) we all called it a day by 10:30 a.m. due to the soaking, at least that's what we all decided on that last run. I'm not sure if they reopened the Tram or not but we split up at mid-mountain and I didn't see the other two in the parking lot as I hurriedly removed my boots and drove home to get out of my wet clothes and make a hot chocolate...in the third week of June!
"Spring" should finally arrive here this week. Riding our weather roller coaster it's supposed to hit 90ºF in Salt Lake City by Thursday which means it'll be pushing 70ºF on the hill, and we lost a good three to four feet of snow this week in places, something made obvious by large rocky ridges now exposed that you couldn't even see last week. In some places crevasse-like cracks are opening as the snowpack's own weight pulls it down the hill. The cornice has now pulled back from the Upper Cirque ridgeline such that the snow in Jaws now starts as a platform some three or four feet below the rocks that form the ridge. Conditions are literally changing by the minute.
This string of weather we're having is nothing short of incredible and today that meant fresh snowfall just three days shy of the summer solstice.Today is setting a record for both the coldest and wettest June 19th in Salt Lake City history. It's pouring down here in the Valley by Utah standards, but it's snowing up high.
Lots of "Gee, I'm not too sure about this..." comments were exchanged amongst friends and strangers alike as we booted up in the rain in the parking lot. Telejon wasn't even sure that they'd open today. Really, how many times do you see this in Utah?
Telejon, Bobby Danger and I boarded the first tram of the day with only 16 others (and about half of us know each other as regulars) and there wouldn't be many more on the hill the whole morning. As if by magic, however, the rain turned to snow between Tram towers 1 and 2 and the snow never let up in intensity. We had a good 2-3 inches already, even more in some places by mid-morning and in part due to the coating of wet snow, and probably because it also started as rain last night the base never froze solid. This meant that we had a creamy surface atop a supportable yet spongy base. For the third week of June it skied remarkably well.
With such a small clientele we never skied tracked snow all day. Around 10 a.m. they closed the Tram because the wet haul cable was slipping, so those of us already on the hill riding the Mineral Basin Express and Little Cloud chairs were the only ones there. All three of us in our group, however, were soaked right through -- my pants (I should've worn my hard shells), Bobby's pants and the back of Jon's neck and shoulders.
We probably had a half dozen or more runs by the time we made our last run down Jaws. Untracked and smooth, I dropped in first when the whole hill gave way on my first turn, cleaning all of the new snow out of Jaws. That stuff was heavy and it took all I could do to get out of the moving slope after my own sluff caught up to me and started to take me for a ride. The same thing happened to both Bobby and Telejon as we each skied a different line in the Upper Cirque.
By the time I reached the base the snow level had arrived there as well. Even though the snowfall shows no sign of relenting (they're now expecting about a foot or so by the time it's done tonight) we all called it a day by 10:30 a.m. due to the soaking, at least that's what we all decided on that last run. I'm not sure if they reopened the Tram or not but we split up at mid-mountain and I didn't see the other two in the parking lot as I hurriedly removed my boots and drove home to get out of my wet clothes and make a hot chocolate...in the third week of June!
"Spring" should finally arrive here this week. Riding our weather roller coaster it's supposed to hit 90ºF in Salt Lake City by Thursday which means it'll be pushing 70ºF on the hill, and we lost a good three to four feet of snow this week in places, something made obvious by large rocky ridges now exposed that you couldn't even see last week. In some places crevasse-like cracks are opening as the snowpack's own weight pulls it down the hill. The cornice has now pulled back from the Upper Cirque ridgeline such that the snow in Jaws now starts as a platform some three or four feet below the rocks that form the ridge. Conditions are literally changing by the minute.
