Day 27 1/14/12: Worse than I'd expected.
As mentioned by Bobby Danger, Snowbird opened up Mineral Basin on Friday, proving my point that there was indeed enough snow all of this time on the Powder Paradise side.
If anything, wind and sublimation has reduced the snow pack over the past few weeks more than any inch or two of snowfall has added to it.
Bobby and I held our usual weekend planning meeting at Suehiro in Cottonwood Heights on Friday night before heading up the Canyon on Saturday morning.
We took a couple of warm-up runs at Alta on Saturday morning before crossing Sugarloaf Pass into Mineral. Some heavy-duty wind events in November and December had scoured down the Baldy Express side of Mineral to bare ground in places, but groomers had worked hard to farm some snow to create a one-cat-wide route down from Sugarloaf Pass.
Atop Hidden Peak we ran into kirbyvv, visiting from Glens Falls, NY along with his Aspen-based daughter Chelsea, who used to handle U.S. PR for Portillo, and some of her friends. We joined them for a couple of runs, one down into Mineral via White Diamonds and another on Old Lady's in Little Cloud Bowl. Frankly, while I'd expected Snowbird to be somewhat bonier than at Alta I was shocked at the difference. Kirbyvv, who had skied Alta on Friday, noted the same. The last pitch of Mark Malou still can't be groomed and was filled with heinous snowboard ice bumps with rocks in every trough. You had to watch your step in Mineral and stick to the gullies and avoid any high point. After three runs rdwore, telejon and I had seen enough and the three of us headed back east while Bobby remained at the Bird.
I skied down to GMD and took my boots off to drive over to Canyons to take a few runs with David Cronheim, FTO's chief legal correspondent who is with 28 folks renting one of the trophy homes in The Colony. I caught up with Dave and one of his friends just as they were finishing up lunch on the deck at The Lookout with former Olympian and World Cup ski racer Kaylin Richardson.
Canyons is open no further south than Tombstone and Ninety-Nine 90. Other than the terrain off the latter lift you're pretty much limited to what staffers have made snow on. There's zero snow at the base or on south-facing aspects as high as mid-mountain.
Groomers were firm and fast, a bit icy in the high-traffic areas but not too bad elsewhere. The problem is that limited open terrain made the high-traffic areas a bit more common than usual as people are crammed into less space. After a couple of runs that felt like we were on the NJ Turnpike we decided to see just how bad things were on Ninety-Nine 90.
I figured that north-facing terrain likely held the most snow, so we went out the open gate into Red Pine Gulch even though we realized that this could be a critical error in judgment. I cautioned the others to stick to the gullies and pushed off. On the upper half, honestly it wasn't bad...kind of fun, actually, with small chalky, edgeable bumps and the occasional obstacle that was easily avoided. Red Pine, however, gets steeper the lower down you go, and halfway down I zigged left to have a look at the steepest pitch before turning back as there was no way you'd self-arrest on that stuff and I didn't feel like potentially becoming a human pinball through the trees.
Surprisingly enough, however, the worst hazards weren't on Red Pine, but instead were actually on the groomed exit via Red Pine Road, where Dave caught an edge on a rock and ripped it right out of his Völkls. He switched skis and we bombed down Doc's Run to the village for Dave to pick up some demos, then they skied back to their house at the base of Ninety-Nine 90 as I drove up to the house to mourn the dead skis over a glass of scotch.
That house was amazing. It's got to be 10,000-15,000 square feet, and like I said is holding 28. By the time they negotiated a fair rental rate and split it that many ways the price per person became eminently reasonable, but I still found myself gawking at how the 0.001% lives.
Day 28 1/15/12: Anticipation
It was just Bobby Danger, rdwore and yours truly at Alta this morning. It was a gloomy, windy morning. Desert dust blown in on the wind was turning the snow dark and murky to match the skies. You could just feel the anticipation in the air today, both from the weather as a thick, dark overcast moved in from the west and the south wind continued to increase in intensity ahead of the approaching frontal system, and from the people, who were positively electric in discussing the change in the weather pattern forecast for this week. Things will get unseasonably cold tonight with a few inches of dry snow falling through the day on Monday, but the real game-changer should arrive mid-week as we get a warm and wet flow straight off the Pacific into the foreseeable future. It will be a real firehose if the models are correct, but that's honestly what we need right now. It's just what the doctor ordered. With this kind of warmth I'm just wondering how high the rain/snow line will be, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it as high as 8,000 feet. I'm just hoping that it doesn't rise any higher.
Aside from a firm, fast run down Backside we largely stuck to the groomers today...again. As the wind continued to increase we all called it a day at noon.
Next weekend should be a different story!
As mentioned by Bobby Danger, Snowbird opened up Mineral Basin on Friday, proving my point that there was indeed enough snow all of this time on the Powder Paradise side.
If anything, wind and sublimation has reduced the snow pack over the past few weeks more than any inch or two of snowfall has added to it.
Bobby and I held our usual weekend planning meeting at Suehiro in Cottonwood Heights on Friday night before heading up the Canyon on Saturday morning.
We took a couple of warm-up runs at Alta on Saturday morning before crossing Sugarloaf Pass into Mineral. Some heavy-duty wind events in November and December had scoured down the Baldy Express side of Mineral to bare ground in places, but groomers had worked hard to farm some snow to create a one-cat-wide route down from Sugarloaf Pass.
Atop Hidden Peak we ran into kirbyvv, visiting from Glens Falls, NY along with his Aspen-based daughter Chelsea, who used to handle U.S. PR for Portillo, and some of her friends. We joined them for a couple of runs, one down into Mineral via White Diamonds and another on Old Lady's in Little Cloud Bowl. Frankly, while I'd expected Snowbird to be somewhat bonier than at Alta I was shocked at the difference. Kirbyvv, who had skied Alta on Friday, noted the same. The last pitch of Mark Malou still can't be groomed and was filled with heinous snowboard ice bumps with rocks in every trough. You had to watch your step in Mineral and stick to the gullies and avoid any high point. After three runs rdwore, telejon and I had seen enough and the three of us headed back east while Bobby remained at the Bird.
I skied down to GMD and took my boots off to drive over to Canyons to take a few runs with David Cronheim, FTO's chief legal correspondent who is with 28 folks renting one of the trophy homes in The Colony. I caught up with Dave and one of his friends just as they were finishing up lunch on the deck at The Lookout with former Olympian and World Cup ski racer Kaylin Richardson.
Canyons is open no further south than Tombstone and Ninety-Nine 90. Other than the terrain off the latter lift you're pretty much limited to what staffers have made snow on. There's zero snow at the base or on south-facing aspects as high as mid-mountain.
Groomers were firm and fast, a bit icy in the high-traffic areas but not too bad elsewhere. The problem is that limited open terrain made the high-traffic areas a bit more common than usual as people are crammed into less space. After a couple of runs that felt like we were on the NJ Turnpike we decided to see just how bad things were on Ninety-Nine 90.
I figured that north-facing terrain likely held the most snow, so we went out the open gate into Red Pine Gulch even though we realized that this could be a critical error in judgment. I cautioned the others to stick to the gullies and pushed off. On the upper half, honestly it wasn't bad...kind of fun, actually, with small chalky, edgeable bumps and the occasional obstacle that was easily avoided. Red Pine, however, gets steeper the lower down you go, and halfway down I zigged left to have a look at the steepest pitch before turning back as there was no way you'd self-arrest on that stuff and I didn't feel like potentially becoming a human pinball through the trees.
Surprisingly enough, however, the worst hazards weren't on Red Pine, but instead were actually on the groomed exit via Red Pine Road, where Dave caught an edge on a rock and ripped it right out of his Völkls. He switched skis and we bombed down Doc's Run to the village for Dave to pick up some demos, then they skied back to their house at the base of Ninety-Nine 90 as I drove up to the house to mourn the dead skis over a glass of scotch.
That house was amazing. It's got to be 10,000-15,000 square feet, and like I said is holding 28. By the time they negotiated a fair rental rate and split it that many ways the price per person became eminently reasonable, but I still found myself gawking at how the 0.001% lives.
Day 28 1/15/12: Anticipation
It was just Bobby Danger, rdwore and yours truly at Alta this morning. It was a gloomy, windy morning. Desert dust blown in on the wind was turning the snow dark and murky to match the skies. You could just feel the anticipation in the air today, both from the weather as a thick, dark overcast moved in from the west and the south wind continued to increase in intensity ahead of the approaching frontal system, and from the people, who were positively electric in discussing the change in the weather pattern forecast for this week. Things will get unseasonably cold tonight with a few inches of dry snow falling through the day on Monday, but the real game-changer should arrive mid-week as we get a warm and wet flow straight off the Pacific into the foreseeable future. It will be a real firehose if the models are correct, but that's honestly what we need right now. It's just what the doctor ordered. With this kind of warmth I'm just wondering how high the rain/snow line will be, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it as high as 8,000 feet. I'm just hoping that it doesn't rise any higher.
Aside from a firm, fast run down Backside we largely stuck to the groomers today...again. As the wind continued to increase we all called it a day at noon.
Next weekend should be a different story!
