I got out to the tram deck by 10AM Monday to meet Carey Dickerman, a meteorologist from Monterey, CA. with whom I've had e-mail correspondence for 5 years but had never met in person. Sound familiar, admin? Carey doesn't ski quite as often as I do, but he's about admin's age and windsurfs the Central Coast 30+ times a year. Thus we had a fast paced morning, especially since he had to catch the UTA bus by 1PM to make his 4PM flight home. As Sierra spring veterans we timed a couple of early Mineral Basin runs right while the frontside remained firm. Late morning I thought I should show Carey the most sheltered lines in search of soft and dry snow. He seemed pleased with my choice of Rasta trees from Little Cloud and STH trees from Gad 2.
After a couple more runs I crawled into Gad 2 for a 2PM rest and lunch break and met a few of our Iron Blosam group. By the time we headed out we had grown to 9, including the 20 year old Mark Meisner and his friend Eddie (the Needle's Eye pic from admin's Sunday report). By the time we had skied Middle Cirque and Silver Fox it was 3:30PM and I decided to bail out, as I had skied 21,200 and was flagging some, and more importantly wanted to save energy for Tuesday's planned adventure.
I had last skied Alta's Main Chute in 1990, but none of our Iron Blosam group had ever done it. 2 years ago high winds aborted our plan, but with the calm and blazing heat of this week it has been open daily since Sunday. 17 of our group went snowmobiling, but Ben and Stefan were keen to give Main Chute a shot. Snowbird patrol was skeptical of potential snow conditions, and also advised that you must hike Baldy from the Sugarloaf side.
We arrived at the top of Baldy Express, saw a few people headed up already, and started hiking at 11:26. Stefan and I made it to the top of Baldy in 34 minutes, less time than in 1990, though that one was my first day in Utah after driving the night before from SoCal. Younger and more fit Ben was about 10 minutes faster than me.
After taking in the views and some pics we dropped in. I was correct in predicting that the steep and sheltered chute would still have soft and dry snow. What surprised me is that there are so many Altaholic hikers that Main Chute had grown considerable moguls since being opened Sunday. I felt stronger than Monday afternoon, but after being worked for 3 days by admin and the younger members of our group I skied Main defensively this time. In 1990 it was smooth and somewhat softer, easier then to get a good rhythm of turns going despite the pitch and exposure.
About 1PM we heeded admin's recommendation of Collins Grill for a celebratory lunch. He didn't tell us that they also provide slippers for those who would like to rest their feet after schlepping up Baldy. By 2PM we had traversed back to Snowbird, where we eventually met up with Al and a couple of Ben's friends. Of course Ben & company still had plenty of energy, so we were seeking out interesting lines all the way to 4:30PM. Snowbird announced on Sunday that they were going to run all lifts 1/2 hour later than normal due to the time change. However we passed by the base of Little Cloud at 3:50 and it had closed at its normal 3:45. Only 17,000 today, but as admin says, consider the quality!
After a couple more runs I crawled into Gad 2 for a 2PM rest and lunch break and met a few of our Iron Blosam group. By the time we headed out we had grown to 9, including the 20 year old Mark Meisner and his friend Eddie (the Needle's Eye pic from admin's Sunday report). By the time we had skied Middle Cirque and Silver Fox it was 3:30PM and I decided to bail out, as I had skied 21,200 and was flagging some, and more importantly wanted to save energy for Tuesday's planned adventure.
I had last skied Alta's Main Chute in 1990, but none of our Iron Blosam group had ever done it. 2 years ago high winds aborted our plan, but with the calm and blazing heat of this week it has been open daily since Sunday. 17 of our group went snowmobiling, but Ben and Stefan were keen to give Main Chute a shot. Snowbird patrol was skeptical of potential snow conditions, and also advised that you must hike Baldy from the Sugarloaf side.
We arrived at the top of Baldy Express, saw a few people headed up already, and started hiking at 11:26. Stefan and I made it to the top of Baldy in 34 minutes, less time than in 1990, though that one was my first day in Utah after driving the night before from SoCal. Younger and more fit Ben was about 10 minutes faster than me.
After taking in the views and some pics we dropped in. I was correct in predicting that the steep and sheltered chute would still have soft and dry snow. What surprised me is that there are so many Altaholic hikers that Main Chute had grown considerable moguls since being opened Sunday. I felt stronger than Monday afternoon, but after being worked for 3 days by admin and the younger members of our group I skied Main defensively this time. In 1990 it was smooth and somewhat softer, easier then to get a good rhythm of turns going despite the pitch and exposure.
About 1PM we heeded admin's recommendation of Collins Grill for a celebratory lunch. He didn't tell us that they also provide slippers for those who would like to rest their feet after schlepping up Baldy. By 2PM we had traversed back to Snowbird, where we eventually met up with Al and a couple of Ben's friends. Of course Ben & company still had plenty of energy, so we were seeking out interesting lines all the way to 4:30PM. Snowbird announced on Sunday that they were going to run all lifts 1/2 hour later than normal due to the time change. However we passed by the base of Little Cloud at 3:50 and it had closed at its normal 3:45. Only 17,000 today, but as admin says, consider the quality!
