Snowbird, UT 6/4/2005 (incl. some Alta photos)

My first winter of living in paradise continues to be the winter that just won't quit.

I met up with Marc_C at the Tram at 10am, and we immediately dove into skier's left of Silver Fox, just below the summit tram tower. Perfectly smooth, perfectly even...perfect snow for carving high-speed arcs. It's amazing what a difference two weeks makes, for the lower mountain now requires picking and choosing to find continuous snow despite the 133-inch mid-mountain snowpack that remains. We found what we were looking for in a gully on the right side of Lower Silver Fox that had continuous white despite a couple of "technical" spots that were quite honestly a lot of fun. Technically the lower mountain is closed, actually now labeled "backcountry." They're encouraging folks to ski Little Cloud and download on the tram at the end of the day, but it seemed that most folks were skiing top-to-bottom anyway.

Back up the tram and into North Chute this time, a line that Tony Crocker referred to here last month as Rock Chute. Sublime! Steep, tight, and fully covered. This time we traversed into the top of Dalton's Draw and Anderson's Trees, then headed further down Rothman Way which ran out of snow just beyond the fence at Lower Dalton's. It looked a bit sketch at the fence, so I dropped into the trees to skier's right before I ran out of snow and had to walk 4 steps to reconnect to Lower Dalton's. Marc_C took the smarter line and burst through the fence, finding continuous snow top to bottom where we bumped into Junior Bounous for the first of several times today. That guy is just amazing at 79!

By this time we headed over to Little Cloud, where the ungroomed slopes of Little Cloud Bowl had been groomed by the sun and the rain into a perfectly smooth hero surface. We bumped into Dale and Patty where we reconnected with Regulator Johnson, and the four of us continued to yo-yo the Little Cloud lift for the rest of our day, alternating between steep lines below Road to Provo and the wide-open spaces of Little Cloud. In either event, the snow was perfectly smooth and perfectly fun. "We didn't have snow this good on many days this winter," Pat noted.

A funny thing happened about 11:30 am, funny for June, anyway: it started snowing. Sure, it was only a flurry, but hey...snow in June! Accumulating snow is forecast for the mountains on Tuesday.

After the flurry the sun finally made an appearance, and its effect on the snow was nearly instantaneous. We made our final descent via Great Scott to Dalton's Draw. The cornice atop Great Scott is now gone, replaced by an 8-foot vertical wall for an entrance. You can cheat by taking the line of many earlier skiers that has cut a slot into the wall, but after deliberating for a few moments I got the rush of the day by dropping right off the wall. The rock ribs in the top of Great Scott are still not even an annoyance, although the snow was clearly heavier than our earlier Peruvian shots. At the bottom we again bumped into Junior, who was just descending from a hike and ski on High Baldy. Like I said...at 79, the guy is simply amazing.

Snowbird is shooting to remain open for weekends through July 4. \/ We wrapped up today by 1:35pm after 13,842 vertical feet. Marc_C and I will head back up in the morning for a few runs tomorrow.

After skiing I drove up to Alta to have a look around, for I haven't been there since they closed on April 17. As good as the snowpack looks at Snowbird, it looks even better over there. High Rustler is still wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom, save for the plowing of the work road to get construction vehicles up to the Watson Shelter work site.

It may have been snowing up in the mountains today, but some dozen or so miles away as the crow flies it was too hot to sit out in the sun on my deck at home this afternoon. Yep, paradise indeed!

Enjoy the photos!

Sounds like a much better ski surface than 5/15. I looked up my records from Memorial weekend of 1985. I skied 20K+ each of those 2 days, but your description of conditions sounds better.

Snowbird's off -piste may be better than Mammoth at the moment. I looked up a few things in response to Patrick's questions about his upcoming trip, and there are are some pics showing suncupping in low traffic areas. The Sierra got baked for the second half of May and Mammoth lost 5-6 feet of base.

I called that new skiable line "Rock Chute" because you had called it that in the same post. Presumably your local friends have corrected us.

I'm somewhat disgusted by all those empty chairs on Little Cloud given the quality of skiing you report. I may carp at some of the scraps the easterners ski on, but you Utah skiers are really spoiled. I hope there are enough of you out there that Snowbird does not regret running until July 4.

Tony Crocker":1uvpdqy8 said:

I'm somewhat disgusted by all those empty chairs on Little Cloud given the quality of skiing you report. I may carp at some of the scraps the easterners ski on, but you Utah skiers are really spoiled. I hope there are enough of you out there that Snowbird does not regret running until July 4.

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Really, it was sufficiently busy - plenty of people. I took that picture on our last ride of the day when many had already gone home. For most of the day there was a line on Little Cloud of a half dozen or so chairs, and despite plans to run the tram every 30 minutes the cabins went up the hill pretty much back-to-back.

Tony Crocker":2ha3upmx said:

I'm somewhat disgusted by all those empty chairs on Little Cloud given the quality of skiing you report. I may carp at some of the scraps the easterners ski on, but you Utah skiers are really spoiled. I hope there are enough of you out there that Snowbird does not regret running until July 4.

Click to expand...

Two points to remember:
First, as Marc G already mentioned, that photo was taken ~1:30, only a little more than an hour to closing. A lot of folks quit by noon during the spring.
Second, and more importantly, most of us locals are hitting the Cirque/Peruvian Gulch side hard and often, while we can. Arguably, the skiing is more interesting on the Cirque side and while much of it is accessible from Little Cloud via long traverse, quite a number of prime lines aren't. Plus, it was still top to bottom sking today, provided that on the bottom 500' you picked your lines carefully and were willing to do some artful, technical stuff, avoid rocks, ski over more than one undermined snow bridge, etc. Today, again, though the tram was scheduled for departures every 20 - 30 minutes, they immediately went to a "leisurely back-to-back" schedule "...because of the numbers [of skiers]".

There will be plenty of time for laps/scraps on Little Cloud once everything on the Peruvian side has mandatory walking - probably next weekend.