Day 25: Complete
With Tony Crocker in town, Bobby Danger and I headed up to Snowbasin today. While surfaces were crunchy in spots, they were delightfully chalky in others, and Bobby's the perfect tour guide to find the latter and avoid the former.
We skied hard from 9 am to 3:50 p.m., racking up the first full day for me all season. Snowbasin is home to long thigh-burning runs, and I'm not quite sure how I made it nearly to the closing bell today other than by the adrenaline of simply having fun. We'll see what this does to me tomorrow. :lol:
We skied everywhere and just about anywhere, save for No Name. The lack of fresh snow simply didn't give me enough motivation to head over there.
We spent the morning starting on John Paul and working our way over to Strawberry and back again. On our first trip up Strawberry we opted for the DeMoisy Chutes, but instead of getting in via the traverse across the front that I usually take, Bobby showed us a traverse that ascends a short bootpack before it wraps around the west side of the summit ridgeline and returns to the east side of the ridge where the ski area's located atop Arrowhead. While Arrowhead is a steep line that today was draped in stiff, chalky snow...:
...it was the traverse that most freaked me out. The southwest-facing backside of DeMoisy Peak was totally windbuffed and sun glazed, and the traverse -- barely as wide as a pair of skis -- was heavily pockmarked by postholes. One slip here would have resulted in a high-speed slide for life through boulders en route to downtown Ogden:
During the morning we spotted several folks hiking along the Mt. Ogden ridgeline, so our plan was hatched: after lunch we'd head up the Tram and start climbing to ski either The Fingers...
...or Mt. Ogden Chute:
I've never skied either, so this would be a real coup.
It was around 11:40 when we strolled into the John Paul Lodge for lunch.
Tony and I had a large bowl of cioppino, a zesty tomato-based Italian stew filled with mussels, shrimp, crab claws and clams. (This ain't Alta!) while Bob had a large salad. Renourished, we stepped back outside...
...and headed over to the Mt. Allen Tram.
Walking over, I found myself walking next to a pair of patrollers carrying a bundle of signs and a spool of rope.
"Geez...you wouldn't be closing off the Mt. Ogden gate, would you?" I asked.
"Nope," the one replied, "it's closed already."
:?
The patroller went on to explain that the people we saw were patrollers in training up on the ridge. "Besides," he added, "the chute's in pretty nasty shape."
Doh!
Oh, well. No longer having any reason to board the Tram, we clicked in and pushed off in the other direction, once again working our way over to Strawberry.
Now, I've never been out to the Cathedral, which is way off at the far eastern area of the resort through some gates to skier's far right of Strawberry.
Bobby led us out that way, where we found more steep, smooth chalk on the apron. This, however, was only the first phase of an impossibly long, multi-faceted run that ended in some steep gullies and ridges that reminded me for all the world of the Hobacks at Jackson. How have I never skied out here before??? ](*,)
It was so good that we did it again.
We last loaded Strawberry at 3:20, working our way along Philpot Ridge to finish up on Sunshine Bowl en route back to Earl's Lodge. A full -- and fully satisfying -- day.
With Tony Crocker in town, Bobby Danger and I headed up to Snowbasin today. While surfaces were crunchy in spots, they were delightfully chalky in others, and Bobby's the perfect tour guide to find the latter and avoid the former.
We skied hard from 9 am to 3:50 p.m., racking up the first full day for me all season. Snowbasin is home to long thigh-burning runs, and I'm not quite sure how I made it nearly to the closing bell today other than by the adrenaline of simply having fun. We'll see what this does to me tomorrow. :lol:
We skied everywhere and just about anywhere, save for No Name. The lack of fresh snow simply didn't give me enough motivation to head over there.
We spent the morning starting on John Paul and working our way over to Strawberry and back again. On our first trip up Strawberry we opted for the DeMoisy Chutes, but instead of getting in via the traverse across the front that I usually take, Bobby showed us a traverse that ascends a short bootpack before it wraps around the west side of the summit ridgeline and returns to the east side of the ridge where the ski area's located atop Arrowhead. While Arrowhead is a steep line that today was draped in stiff, chalky snow...:
...it was the traverse that most freaked me out. The southwest-facing backside of DeMoisy Peak was totally windbuffed and sun glazed, and the traverse -- barely as wide as a pair of skis -- was heavily pockmarked by postholes. One slip here would have resulted in a high-speed slide for life through boulders en route to downtown Ogden:
During the morning we spotted several folks hiking along the Mt. Ogden ridgeline, so our plan was hatched: after lunch we'd head up the Tram and start climbing to ski either The Fingers...
...or Mt. Ogden Chute:
I've never skied either, so this would be a real coup.
It was around 11:40 when we strolled into the John Paul Lodge for lunch.
Tony and I had a large bowl of cioppino, a zesty tomato-based Italian stew filled with mussels, shrimp, crab claws and clams. (This ain't Alta!) while Bob had a large salad. Renourished, we stepped back outside...
...and headed over to the Mt. Allen Tram.
Walking over, I found myself walking next to a pair of patrollers carrying a bundle of signs and a spool of rope.
"Geez...you wouldn't be closing off the Mt. Ogden gate, would you?" I asked.
"Nope," the one replied, "it's closed already."
:?
The patroller went on to explain that the people we saw were patrollers in training up on the ridge. "Besides," he added, "the chute's in pretty nasty shape."
Doh!
Oh, well. No longer having any reason to board the Tram, we clicked in and pushed off in the other direction, once again working our way over to Strawberry.
Now, I've never been out to the Cathedral, which is way off at the far eastern area of the resort through some gates to skier's far right of Strawberry.
Bobby led us out that way, where we found more steep, smooth chalk on the apron. This, however, was only the first phase of an impossibly long, multi-faceted run that ended in some steep gullies and ridges that reminded me for all the world of the Hobacks at Jackson. How have I never skied out here before??? ](*,)
It was so good that we did it again.
We last loaded Strawberry at 3:20, working our way along Philpot Ridge to finish up on Sunshine Bowl en route back to Earl's Lodge. A full -- and fully satisfying -- day.
