Day 34: Back to high pressure.
Yup, it's back. We picked up around 4" of new on Thursday but other than that things look dry over the 10-day outlook. Of course, as the Crocker Curse returns next weekend. :-k Friday night's sushi planning meeting included an unusual element at Suehiro. I might just have to reverse my recommendation for the place because my kid has worked his way up from dishwasher and last night was behind the sushi bar. He made our Spicy Crystal Shrimp roll:
Hey, at least he's now gainfully employed. :roll:
So with the return of high pressure today in Little Cottonwood Canyon was sunny and dry, albeit a bit nippy.
Our first run of the morning screaming down Devil's Elbow to Roller Coaster resulted in an ice cream headache. With temperatures this morning in the single digits it was the perfect opportunity to leave the mid-layer at home and test Columbia's new Circuit Breaker men's electrically heated jacket. Our review will be published shortly but I'll tell you right now that this thing rocks! It's like wearing a heating pad across your low back that felt mighty good beneath the backpack's hip belt, and heating elements in the wrist also keep blood flowing to your hands. I was perfectly comfortable in single digits with only a base layer underneath.
There are three heat settings and even with keeping it on the two hotter settings I still got a good 4.5 hours out of the pair of lithium polymer batteries. On the last run at 2:30 I certainly noticed the difference after the batteries ran out. $850, though, is a mighty steep price to pay -- a jacket shouldn't cost more than a good pair of skis. Columbia is trying new technologies to break out of their brand image of your father's Bugaboo jacket, or mine for that matter as I've got an old neon one from the 80's still in a box somewhere. If they can get the price down (hey, you've got to recoup your R&D cost sometime...) they'll have a winner on their hands.
So after our warm-up run we headed across Sugarloaf Pass and through the Taliban Checkpoint for a run in Mineral Basin at Snowbird. The snow on the Baldy Express side was all natural so it was nice and soft, and I was surprised to see Snowbird still making snow in key locations including the last pitch of Lupine Loop, Regulator Johnson, and just above the top of Gadzoom. We took a lap in the Rasta Chutes, which were beautifully wind-buffed, before returning to Hidden Peak for another run on White Diamonds in Mineral before boarding Baldy Express to return to Snowbird East to join Skidog, who arrived a bit late as he was retrieving a pair of 191cm H2O Gear Kodiaks from Dean Cummings' garage.
For the rest of the day we were back at Alta. Highlights included smooth wind-buffed areas on Harold's and Backside, and loose lightly tracked powder on Greeley Hill.
I got about 5.5 hours of sleep last night, so I called it a day at 2:30 after Louie, a Boston resident who winters here at Alta and who is also a Suehiro regular, joined us on Harold's. The others headed to Wildcat with Louie as I took my boots off and headed home to take a nap.
There were a lot of map readers at Alta today, and GMD this morning was as busy as I've seen it all winter. Tomorrow's another day, and Mrs. Admin tells me that she's going to take a lesson. I'll believe it when I see it.
Yup, it's back. We picked up around 4" of new on Thursday but other than that things look dry over the 10-day outlook. Of course, as the Crocker Curse returns next weekend. :-k Friday night's sushi planning meeting included an unusual element at Suehiro. I might just have to reverse my recommendation for the place because my kid has worked his way up from dishwasher and last night was behind the sushi bar. He made our Spicy Crystal Shrimp roll:
Hey, at least he's now gainfully employed. :roll:
So with the return of high pressure today in Little Cottonwood Canyon was sunny and dry, albeit a bit nippy.
Our first run of the morning screaming down Devil's Elbow to Roller Coaster resulted in an ice cream headache. With temperatures this morning in the single digits it was the perfect opportunity to leave the mid-layer at home and test Columbia's new Circuit Breaker men's electrically heated jacket. Our review will be published shortly but I'll tell you right now that this thing rocks! It's like wearing a heating pad across your low back that felt mighty good beneath the backpack's hip belt, and heating elements in the wrist also keep blood flowing to your hands. I was perfectly comfortable in single digits with only a base layer underneath.
There are three heat settings and even with keeping it on the two hotter settings I still got a good 4.5 hours out of the pair of lithium polymer batteries. On the last run at 2:30 I certainly noticed the difference after the batteries ran out. $850, though, is a mighty steep price to pay -- a jacket shouldn't cost more than a good pair of skis. Columbia is trying new technologies to break out of their brand image of your father's Bugaboo jacket, or mine for that matter as I've got an old neon one from the 80's still in a box somewhere. If they can get the price down (hey, you've got to recoup your R&D cost sometime...) they'll have a winner on their hands.
So after our warm-up run we headed across Sugarloaf Pass and through the Taliban Checkpoint for a run in Mineral Basin at Snowbird. The snow on the Baldy Express side was all natural so it was nice and soft, and I was surprised to see Snowbird still making snow in key locations including the last pitch of Lupine Loop, Regulator Johnson, and just above the top of Gadzoom. We took a lap in the Rasta Chutes, which were beautifully wind-buffed, before returning to Hidden Peak for another run on White Diamonds in Mineral before boarding Baldy Express to return to Snowbird East to join Skidog, who arrived a bit late as he was retrieving a pair of 191cm H2O Gear Kodiaks from Dean Cummings' garage.
For the rest of the day we were back at Alta. Highlights included smooth wind-buffed areas on Harold's and Backside, and loose lightly tracked powder on Greeley Hill.
I got about 5.5 hours of sleep last night, so I called it a day at 2:30 after Louie, a Boston resident who winters here at Alta and who is also a Suehiro regular, joined us on Harold's. The others headed to Wildcat with Louie as I took my boots off and headed home to take a nap.
There were a lot of map readers at Alta today, and GMD this morning was as busy as I've seen it all winter. Tomorrow's another day, and Mrs. Admin tells me that she's going to take a lesson. I'll believe it when I see it.
