Day 39: The busiest I've seen it all year.
The Friday night phase of this multi-part storm was a bust. We only got 5", four of which fell before closing yesterday. It's a closed off low pressure system, and the Wasatch was under the doughnut hole in the middle of the cyclone. It's like being stuck in the eye of the hurricane -- raging all around you, but not doing a darned thing where you're standing.
There were no chain restrictions in place for the Little Cottonwood Canyon Road, nor is it a holiday. So why did traffic come to a sudden halt just past the La Caille sign like there was a chain check ahead? Why did I inch at 0-20 miles per hour halfway up the canyon, turning my 23-minute drive into 45 minutes? Why were they parked all along the road at Snowbird? Why were there no tables available in the Goldminer's Daughter cafe at 8:30 a.m.?
I honestly don't know. By any observation, however, there were a ton of visitors in the Canyon today. I recognized only a few faces, confirming that there were a ton of map readers at the resorts. In a way that turned out to be a good thing, for many of our out of the way haunts were actually left untouched. Had the local powderhounds been out it would've been tracked up in a heartbeat.
There was one visitor there today who I didn't even know was in Utah: my friend John, along with his girlfriend Ann(e?). I knew he was coming out soon, I just didn't know when. I easily spotted him in the crowd in Goldminer's, thanks to the fact that a 6'7" African-American tele dude kind of sticks out in Utah. :lol: (To quote his singing, "One of these things is not like the other...") As a short little shrimp myself, I almost got a crick in my neck just looking up to greet him. John, it was good to see you and ski with you and Ann(e?) today.
With the pre-opening lineup filling the maze (and then some) on Collins we skied right onto Wildcat with zero wait, and warmed up with a very lightly tracked Restaurant Hill. The base beneath the new snow was cold and stiff, but if you found low angle terrain without old tracks beneath, and stayed light on your edges you could actually float above it. So that's precisely the terrain we sought out this morning, and as a result the day turned out far better than I'd expected. We all had a blast.
I shot a bunch of photos throughout the morning as I'm product testing the X600, a new superzoom from General Imaging, a divison of GE. More on that in an upcoming gear review that will publish in the main portion of this website, but let's just start out by saying that thus far I'm impressed with the feature set in a camera of this price. This morning's overcast skies weren't the perfect environment to try out a new camera, but it performed admirably.
Wanting to avoid the crush of people in the on-mountain eateries we opted to lunch at Rustler Lodge, where we found the dining room only half full and where I can honestly say that today's special constitutes the best lunch I've ever had in Little Cottonwood Canyon: a soft shell crab BLT. Two buttermilk breaded and sauteed soft shell crabs served within a BLT, all for $12. Divine! What does $12 get you these days at Killington, a hot dog?
While eating the snowfall returned in earnest, adding a fresh half inch or so to soften surfaces even further. After lunch we tried a Tombstone/Armpit, finding nice, soft snow without the scratchy base beneath, but light had gone flat all to hell, so we boarded Wildcat and hiked the 50 feet to the Keyhole gate down into Snowbird. Keyhole is really filling in nicely, and even the crux is easy to make turns through now as it's not scraped down into the two foot-deep concave trough. We returned to Hidden Peak via Gadzoom and Little Cloud (a two or three minute line at Gadzoom, virtually no one else boarding Little Cloud), followed by more soft, pillowy skiing down through Mineral Basin back to Baldy Express to return to Alta. We headed down the Canyon at 3:15, wishing to avoid the crush of traffic as the resorts prepared to close and everyone spilled onto Little Cottonwood Canyon Road.
Tomorrow: Powder Mountain.
The Friday night phase of this multi-part storm was a bust. We only got 5", four of which fell before closing yesterday. It's a closed off low pressure system, and the Wasatch was under the doughnut hole in the middle of the cyclone. It's like being stuck in the eye of the hurricane -- raging all around you, but not doing a darned thing where you're standing.
There were no chain restrictions in place for the Little Cottonwood Canyon Road, nor is it a holiday. So why did traffic come to a sudden halt just past the La Caille sign like there was a chain check ahead? Why did I inch at 0-20 miles per hour halfway up the canyon, turning my 23-minute drive into 45 minutes? Why were they parked all along the road at Snowbird? Why were there no tables available in the Goldminer's Daughter cafe at 8:30 a.m.?
I honestly don't know. By any observation, however, there were a ton of visitors in the Canyon today. I recognized only a few faces, confirming that there were a ton of map readers at the resorts. In a way that turned out to be a good thing, for many of our out of the way haunts were actually left untouched. Had the local powderhounds been out it would've been tracked up in a heartbeat.
There was one visitor there today who I didn't even know was in Utah: my friend John, along with his girlfriend Ann(e?). I knew he was coming out soon, I just didn't know when. I easily spotted him in the crowd in Goldminer's, thanks to the fact that a 6'7" African-American tele dude kind of sticks out in Utah. :lol: (To quote his singing, "One of these things is not like the other...") As a short little shrimp myself, I almost got a crick in my neck just looking up to greet him. John, it was good to see you and ski with you and Ann(e?) today.
With the pre-opening lineup filling the maze (and then some) on Collins we skied right onto Wildcat with zero wait, and warmed up with a very lightly tracked Restaurant Hill. The base beneath the new snow was cold and stiff, but if you found low angle terrain without old tracks beneath, and stayed light on your edges you could actually float above it. So that's precisely the terrain we sought out this morning, and as a result the day turned out far better than I'd expected. We all had a blast.
I shot a bunch of photos throughout the morning as I'm product testing the X600, a new superzoom from General Imaging, a divison of GE. More on that in an upcoming gear review that will publish in the main portion of this website, but let's just start out by saying that thus far I'm impressed with the feature set in a camera of this price. This morning's overcast skies weren't the perfect environment to try out a new camera, but it performed admirably.
Wanting to avoid the crush of people in the on-mountain eateries we opted to lunch at Rustler Lodge, where we found the dining room only half full and where I can honestly say that today's special constitutes the best lunch I've ever had in Little Cottonwood Canyon: a soft shell crab BLT. Two buttermilk breaded and sauteed soft shell crabs served within a BLT, all for $12. Divine! What does $12 get you these days at Killington, a hot dog?
While eating the snowfall returned in earnest, adding a fresh half inch or so to soften surfaces even further. After lunch we tried a Tombstone/Armpit, finding nice, soft snow without the scratchy base beneath, but light had gone flat all to hell, so we boarded Wildcat and hiked the 50 feet to the Keyhole gate down into Snowbird. Keyhole is really filling in nicely, and even the crux is easy to make turns through now as it's not scraped down into the two foot-deep concave trough. We returned to Hidden Peak via Gadzoom and Little Cloud (a two or three minute line at Gadzoom, virtually no one else boarding Little Cloud), followed by more soft, pillowy skiing down through Mineral Basin back to Baldy Express to return to Alta. We headed down the Canyon at 3:15, wishing to avoid the crush of traffic as the resorts prepared to close and everyone spilled onto Little Cottonwood Canyon Road.
Tomorrow: Powder Mountain.
