Snowbird, March 7-9

Tony Crocker

Administrator
Staff member
My son Adam had gone up to Snowbird to ski with our timeshare friends, but Andrew and I joined them on Saturday night at the Iron Blosam.

I presumed that Snowbird had been well-tracked on Saturday, but Adam caught he opening of Little Cloud while I was checking Andrew into ski school. My friend Al Solish and I got some Little Cloud leftovers around 11AM.
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For less tracked snow we traversed and climbed to the far reaches of Bookends in Mineral Basin. It was a warm day, but this far area curls around and remains shaded most of the time.

After lunch we mostly poked around in the Gad 2 trees. At the end of the day we skied some heavy snow in one of the Gad Chutes, as I knew they would get crusty overnight. In exploring for the last bits of powder we probably skied 5 or 6 runs I had never done before, though I have over 800K lifetime at Snowbird since 1981. Just another reason it's still my favorite lift served area.

Monday and Tuesday were very warm. Over half the mountain transitioned to spring conditions. Therefore we did several tram runs and stuck to the mostly north facing steep runs.
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Upper Primrose (Al skiing at right) and nearby Upper Silver Fox always have great snow no matter how warm it is.
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Here several of our group ski Dalton's under the tram.

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As we approach the Cliff Lodge and tram base Adam launches some air onto the final groomed pitch.

In Monday's warm weather Tanner's Slide avalanched and blocked the Little Cottonwood road until 5:30PM. Therefore the tram stayed open until 4:15. Despite my aching legs, I exercised lack of self discipline and first followed an instructor's small group into Great Scott.

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For my final run I took the Cirque traverse all the way to the end and skied Mach Schnell. The pic is partway down Mach Schnell above the Snowbird lodges (Iron Blosam at left).

On Tuesday with the continued warm weather I skied in a T-shirt and did not take the camera.
 
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