Day 35: Exceeded expectations.
Expectations weren't huge to begin with, so they weren't too hard to exceed, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The storm wasn't supposed to start until the cold front's arrival in the afternoon. However, we got a decent shot of pre-frontal snow that began shortly after opening this morning and never really let up.
I was only a couple of runs into my morning when I got a phone message from FTO's web host indicating that they took the site down because of high CPU load, generated primarily by hits from an IP address in China. I spent a half hour working with the host while Bobby Danger, AmyZ, Telejon, TheOtherAmy and her husband lapped Collins. The new snow had some real meat to it -- it was mostly graupel -- and it instantly transformed surfaces and smoothed out irregularities. And the way it came down it promised free refills all day.
(Note: We're still working on the issue, which is only affecting the main part of our site. We hope to have the full website restored shortly once our web host approves of the changes we've made.)
Shortly after I got back on snow we took one more untracked trip down Greeley Hill and headed over to Snowbird, staying there for the rest of the day. Getting across Sugarloaf Pass into Mineral Basin, however, was a real challenge. Winds were gusting over 50 mph, blowing snow into a whiteout that often reduced visibility to less than 10 feet. We tilted left as we leaned into the wind and pressed on. Almost as soon as we crossed into Snowbird they shut down Baldy Express, and by the time we got to the front side they closed the High Baldy Traverse, too, so we had no easy way to get back to Alta. One of Bobby's friends told us in line that he was riding in Cabin 2 of the Tram when it bumped Tower 4 really hard.
Whatever crowd there was at Snowbird must have either left or went indoors when the front approached, for it was almost shocking how empty our runs were on the upper mountain. We lapped Little Cloud Bowl repeatedly in untracked. With that new lift, adding a Little Cloud lap or two to your itinerary is now absolutely no big deal. The Upper Cirque chute immediately to skier's right of Diagonal was dreamy (damned if I know its name), although bracing ourselves against those wind gusts crossing the top of the Cirque was a real treat, as was crossing the miniature scree field to get to it. It was somewhat disconcerting to stare down into it and not be able to see what you're about to ski but all turned out well. We skied an Upper and Lower Dalton's, a first for me this year.
We kept going up until 3 p.m. and then caught one of the first afternoon UTA buses back to our cars at Alta. The official afternoon total is only 4", but with that kind of wind, again that doesn't tell the whole story. It was stacked up much deeper in many places and it should keep snowing overnight well into tomorrow. It's positively puking here at the house right now at 5,000 feet.
Expectations weren't huge to begin with, so they weren't too hard to exceed, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The storm wasn't supposed to start until the cold front's arrival in the afternoon. However, we got a decent shot of pre-frontal snow that began shortly after opening this morning and never really let up.
I was only a couple of runs into my morning when I got a phone message from FTO's web host indicating that they took the site down because of high CPU load, generated primarily by hits from an IP address in China. I spent a half hour working with the host while Bobby Danger, AmyZ, Telejon, TheOtherAmy and her husband lapped Collins. The new snow had some real meat to it -- it was mostly graupel -- and it instantly transformed surfaces and smoothed out irregularities. And the way it came down it promised free refills all day.
(Note: We're still working on the issue, which is only affecting the main part of our site. We hope to have the full website restored shortly once our web host approves of the changes we've made.)
Shortly after I got back on snow we took one more untracked trip down Greeley Hill and headed over to Snowbird, staying there for the rest of the day. Getting across Sugarloaf Pass into Mineral Basin, however, was a real challenge. Winds were gusting over 50 mph, blowing snow into a whiteout that often reduced visibility to less than 10 feet. We tilted left as we leaned into the wind and pressed on. Almost as soon as we crossed into Snowbird they shut down Baldy Express, and by the time we got to the front side they closed the High Baldy Traverse, too, so we had no easy way to get back to Alta. One of Bobby's friends told us in line that he was riding in Cabin 2 of the Tram when it bumped Tower 4 really hard.
Whatever crowd there was at Snowbird must have either left or went indoors when the front approached, for it was almost shocking how empty our runs were on the upper mountain. We lapped Little Cloud Bowl repeatedly in untracked. With that new lift, adding a Little Cloud lap or two to your itinerary is now absolutely no big deal. The Upper Cirque chute immediately to skier's right of Diagonal was dreamy (damned if I know its name), although bracing ourselves against those wind gusts crossing the top of the Cirque was a real treat, as was crossing the miniature scree field to get to it. It was somewhat disconcerting to stare down into it and not be able to see what you're about to ski but all turned out well. We skied an Upper and Lower Dalton's, a first for me this year.
We kept going up until 3 p.m. and then caught one of the first afternoon UTA buses back to our cars at Alta. The official afternoon total is only 4", but with that kind of wind, again that doesn't tell the whole story. It was stacked up much deeper in many places and it should keep snowing overnight well into tomorrow. It's positively puking here at the house right now at 5,000 feet.
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