Day 82: Powder day.
You've got to love it when a legitimate powder day shows up at the end of April. I tried to get up LCC during the storm on Tuesday, but once they delayed the road opening from the initial 8:30 a.m. estimate to 10:30 a.m. I turned around and went back to work. I figured that I'd go up in the afternoon for a few runs instead but after Tanner's released naturally and nearly hit the road they closed it again around 12:30 p.m. and didn't reopen it until after 3 p.m. That kinda shot Tuesday.
In the end I think that it was for the best anyway. Wednesday was positively cloudless and many areas of the mountain didn't open at all during Tuesday's storm. Driving up I was able to see the toe of the massive Tanner's slide in the trees across the street from the Tanner's Flat campground entrance. Or should I say, "Above the trees." The debris field was a colossal pile that must've been at least 20-25 feet high. :shock:
I arrived at Snowbird around 9:05 a.m. and found most parking full. I'd forgotten that Gadzoom is closed so parking at Entry 1 was out of the question. Entry 2 was already parked back to the entrance, and the Bypass Road was full clear up to the heliport. They had fortunately just finished clearing the Superior lot and even that was half full already by the time I pulled in.
Even though they opened Peruvian which was originally scheduled to remain closed, the Tram line was a full maze, around the building and back onto the Tram Plaza. That meant a 30-minute wait, and Bobby Danger and Skidog had nailed second tram and were already whooping and hollering in 15 inches of untracked on Little Cloud. They planned to stay there until Mineral Basin opened.
So by the time I was on the tram itself it was nearly 10 a.m. I was standing next to a couple of patrollers and was surprised when he got on the radio to get an answer to my question regarding Mineral's ETA. He reported 10 minutes. \
/ I left Skidog and Bobby a message and waited at the rope to Mineral for less than 5 minutes and was waiting with no more than 25 other people when patrol dropped the rope.
I headed out Path to Paradise and to my good fortunate and utter shock, no one else did! The road was closed at the gun turret on Hyena Ridge, but I'd planned to drop just before the gun anyway. I hung a hard left without looking behind me and dropped in. Oh. My. God. I have never, ever had untracked for the entire vertical of Mineral Basin. By that I mean not a single track in front of me or beside me. There were no tracks at all to even potentially cross, much less do so. It's a darned near religious experience to arc turns through an expanse of white that's completely unblemished as far as the eye can see. Wow. Double wow. That first run made the whole day worthwhile.
I was loaded onto only the eighth chair to head back up Mineral Basin Express for the day. I went back for seconds, this time in the slightly lighter snow on the southwest and west-facing Chamonix Chutes, top to bottom. Lightly tracked but still wonderful nonetheless.
At the bottom I encountered Skidog and Bobby. By the time we got back to Hidden Peak patrol had opened Road to Provo, so we were back on the dry side of the mountain to hit Rasta Chutes where only two people had gone before us.
It was good enough for a second helping, after which we ran into rdwore and Bobby's houseguest Paul, who's been here for a couple of months but is to return home to New Hampshire today.
We headed out for Candelabra, but as that had slid to the old suncrust we went one chute further north to Waterfall. While that's normally a mandatory air at the choke point this is no ordinary year.
We all headed back up Peruvian. The others walked through the tunnel but it was time for me to go back to work, so I headed out the highest traverse to North Baldy, continuing past the main face to lesser tracked chutes between that and Keyhole. I wrapped up the day with untracked on the Comma Chute apron before riding Chickadee back to the car.
What a day!
You've got to love it when a legitimate powder day shows up at the end of April. I tried to get up LCC during the storm on Tuesday, but once they delayed the road opening from the initial 8:30 a.m. estimate to 10:30 a.m. I turned around and went back to work. I figured that I'd go up in the afternoon for a few runs instead but after Tanner's released naturally and nearly hit the road they closed it again around 12:30 p.m. and didn't reopen it until after 3 p.m. That kinda shot Tuesday.
In the end I think that it was for the best anyway. Wednesday was positively cloudless and many areas of the mountain didn't open at all during Tuesday's storm. Driving up I was able to see the toe of the massive Tanner's slide in the trees across the street from the Tanner's Flat campground entrance. Or should I say, "Above the trees." The debris field was a colossal pile that must've been at least 20-25 feet high. :shock:
I arrived at Snowbird around 9:05 a.m. and found most parking full. I'd forgotten that Gadzoom is closed so parking at Entry 1 was out of the question. Entry 2 was already parked back to the entrance, and the Bypass Road was full clear up to the heliport. They had fortunately just finished clearing the Superior lot and even that was half full already by the time I pulled in.
Even though they opened Peruvian which was originally scheduled to remain closed, the Tram line was a full maze, around the building and back onto the Tram Plaza. That meant a 30-minute wait, and Bobby Danger and Skidog had nailed second tram and were already whooping and hollering in 15 inches of untracked on Little Cloud. They planned to stay there until Mineral Basin opened.
So by the time I was on the tram itself it was nearly 10 a.m. I was standing next to a couple of patrollers and was surprised when he got on the radio to get an answer to my question regarding Mineral's ETA. He reported 10 minutes. \
/ I left Skidog and Bobby a message and waited at the rope to Mineral for less than 5 minutes and was waiting with no more than 25 other people when patrol dropped the rope.I headed out Path to Paradise and to my good fortunate and utter shock, no one else did! The road was closed at the gun turret on Hyena Ridge, but I'd planned to drop just before the gun anyway. I hung a hard left without looking behind me and dropped in. Oh. My. God. I have never, ever had untracked for the entire vertical of Mineral Basin. By that I mean not a single track in front of me or beside me. There were no tracks at all to even potentially cross, much less do so. It's a darned near religious experience to arc turns through an expanse of white that's completely unblemished as far as the eye can see. Wow. Double wow. That first run made the whole day worthwhile.
I was loaded onto only the eighth chair to head back up Mineral Basin Express for the day. I went back for seconds, this time in the slightly lighter snow on the southwest and west-facing Chamonix Chutes, top to bottom. Lightly tracked but still wonderful nonetheless.
At the bottom I encountered Skidog and Bobby. By the time we got back to Hidden Peak patrol had opened Road to Provo, so we were back on the dry side of the mountain to hit Rasta Chutes where only two people had gone before us.
It was good enough for a second helping, after which we ran into rdwore and Bobby's houseguest Paul, who's been here for a couple of months but is to return home to New Hampshire today.
We headed out for Candelabra, but as that had slid to the old suncrust we went one chute further north to Waterfall. While that's normally a mandatory air at the choke point this is no ordinary year.
We all headed back up Peruvian. The others walked through the tunnel but it was time for me to go back to work, so I headed out the highest traverse to North Baldy, continuing past the main face to lesser tracked chutes between that and Keyhole. I wrapped up the day with untracked on the Comma Chute apron before riding Chickadee back to the car.
What a day!
