Snowbird, UT March 15,2024

[tseeb]

Trying to be quick as we need to load the car and drive a little over 800 miles to get home. At least we gain back one of the hours we lost last weekend. It was my 11th of the last 12 days skiing; 5 in CA around Truckee/N Tahoe and 6 in LCC. It was the first mostly sunny day we had in Utah, but it was WINDY and VERY GUSTY. I skied with Al (Wasatchman on SkiTalk) who I skied with a few years ago at Canyons part of Park City and at Brighton when I was running out of LCC days. He lives at the mouth of LCC, often goes to New Zealand where his wife is from. It was his 2nd day back on skis after getting concussed by out of control skier a couple of weeks ago and was after 10 when we started.

After riding and skiing Wilbere, we went up Gadzoom and Gad 2 and skied all of Tiger Tail finding some good snow and challenge. Then we went up and rode Little Cloud and caught up with my wife who didn't want to repeat another Hoops with Tony Crocker as she'd crashed at bottom of apron and did not like the wind getting there. We cut the corner into Regulator and found good windsift along left side and skied with her to top of Gadzoom. She planned to go into Mid-Gad while we went up Little Cloud again and skied a long, steep, mostly soft snow chute between Gad Chutes and Restaurant Roll. Next time up we skied Barry Barry Steep finding great steep windsift over soft base. We took a lunch break outside at Creekside where wind picked up a couple of times, blowing over our skis and blowing some things off tables.

After lunch we did a warmup skiing to bottom of Gad 2, me via Gad Gully, then skied one of the gullies below its base. Next run from the top of Gad 2 was STH. Selfie from top of Gad 2 with what looks like Everest behind me.

We went to top again via Gad 2 and Little Cloud, skiing Bass Benches, another interesting connect between the two lifts and skied Wilbere Bowl, probably entering too early as we had to downclimb between rocks where Al's 172s fit better than my 185s.

Looking down from same spot.

We could have gone off Mid-Cirque as wind totally died while we were there, but we wanted the longer run. Wind was very gusty. It was calm when I took photo of Al, then gusted when he took one of me a minute or two later, then snowcloud blew past us and down hill.

I led Al via excellent smooth Harpers East then Bass Highway to where he could get to bridge to drive home. I went up Peruvian and skied some of Upper Silver Fox, taking a traverse where slightly strained left groin was returning into bottom of Great Scott that had excellent deep windsift. I skied across meadow to Chips and dropped off a steep corner, skied Hubba Bubba and Middle Mens Downhill and some of smooth Chips Face quitting just before 4 with 21.6K.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I started out Friday with Bryce, Liz and Lucia.

We finally got some sun Friday, but winds were the strongest all week.

Those are the Rastas and with the obvious windsift we had to check it out. The wind was so strong it did not stick on the upper part but was plenty deep lower down. Lucia did not like the wind and departed.

Liz, Bryce and I looked suspiciously into Mineral Basin with the wind coming from that direction, but Lone Star had been groomed again. The grooming had exposed some rocks at the top but much of the run was softening in the sun.

View to the Bookends:

They were well tracked from Thursday and with Mineral’s lift line it was an easy call to try Baldy.

We saw that Patrol Gully had opened and while there were many tracks there was still room to make our own. Bryce knew the highest exit traverse to avoid rocks and held that high line to return to Baldy for another lap.

There was still a walk up to Baldy and Liz did not see us and skied to the Mineral chair, returning to the frontside. She skied some windsift in Upper Primrose and Anderson Hill. She later went to Gad 2 and skied Tigertail to Baby Thunder.

Our second Patrol Gully run was both more tracked and sun affected than the first. So Bryce suggested we try the High Baldy Traverse. He was very patient waiting for my slow pace on the hike.

I thought we would be going past Memorial Buttress, and in my case possibly to Upper Armpit. But Bryce looked around the corner and saw that the wind had mostly exposed that side and that the softer snow was the west facing Venus Line just below us.

There were maybe two tracks in there, and though the snow was settled and dense it skied just fine. There were cliff bands below so we skied to the right toward the trees. Then Bryce cut back under the cliffs here.

Bryce had missed skiing with Adam last year, and as I was slowing down I found Adam, Ben and friends had just left the plaza for lunch. So we headed to Gadzoom and then Bryce joined them at Little Cloud.

I knew what I wanted to do with what energy I had left. The wind had been refilling the Rastas and Hoops all day.

That was continuous deep windsift all the way down to the flats, the best I’ve seen since Castle Mt. in 2018.

I skied two runs in Hoops plus a more challenging line here in the far right Rasta trees.

From the top of that line here’s the view back to Mark Malu, also mostly filled in.

Little Cloud had a 10 minute line for my 3 runs there. I headed into Mineral Basin a little after 3PM and skied Bookmark Gully.

The wind had closed the tram, so it was fairly quiet when I got up top. I went through the first Silver Fox gate, expecting to ski the same line as Monday. But the wind was blasting from right to left as I dropped in. Macaroni had to be loaded with wind blown snow and was thus easy skiing despite its pitch and less than ideal visibility. Windsift continued down Upper Silver Fox approximately on this line as viewed from the High Baldy Traverse 3 hours before.

That was a great finale to one of our better Iron Blosam weeks. I skied 17,800 vertical on Friday.