Day 40: Pixie dust.
Today was once again busy. How busy?
If I thought yesterday was crowded, today was even more so. Our plan had been to go to Powder Mountain today, but as I sat and watched the weather radar, the Snotels and the web cams last night I was less than impressed by what was happening to our north, even as snow pounded at the house. The flow was coming off the Great Salt Lake in the wrong direction for Pow Mow. By the time I went to bed I decided against driving up there, and by the time morning arrived the others did, too.
So there we were back at Goldminer's Daughter again this morning, along with what seemed like the rest of humanity. While the masses lined up for Collins we again walked up to the Kitty and found a little place to call our own for a few runs. We're still testing the GE X600 camera, so we shot a lot of photos again this morning even though the weather wasn't terribly conducive to doing so.
While this storm forecast was almost a bust -- the total of a foot was near the bottom of the forecast range -- it was its quality that made this weekend special. Last night's snow, believe it or not, tallied 7 inches of 1.8% water content snow. This stuff defined the term "cold smoke," and on top of the 5 inches from Friday night, where it was untracked it was enough to keep you insulated from the base on anything that wasn't bumped up, meeting my own personal definition of a powder day. Even when tracked it stayed soft and fluffy, and in a way skied a bit more consistently. No matter how you look at it, this stuff was pixie dust of the highest quality.
Because so many people were skiing in-bounds, we spent much of our day out of bounds. The title of this post is "Alta/Snowbird," and we did in fact ski Snowbird terrain, we just didn't ride any Snowbird lifts today. Beyond that, I can tell you that we rode virtually every open lift at Alta today at least once, save for Sugarloaf, and enjoyed the deepest untracked of the day -- thigh deep in a certain little gully -- at the very end of our day. And beyond that, if I told you any more about where we went today I'd have to kill you. :twisted:
By lunchtime the liftlines subsided to negligible levels and never returned, although we were all on the road by 3 p.m. to avoid the crush heading down the canyon at closing time.
When I got home the pilot had gone out on the hot water heater. A word of advice: never, ever put your face in front of the opening to the burner to see if it lights after you get the pilot started again. :-"
Today was once again busy. How busy?
If I thought yesterday was crowded, today was even more so. Our plan had been to go to Powder Mountain today, but as I sat and watched the weather radar, the Snotels and the web cams last night I was less than impressed by what was happening to our north, even as snow pounded at the house. The flow was coming off the Great Salt Lake in the wrong direction for Pow Mow. By the time I went to bed I decided against driving up there, and by the time morning arrived the others did, too.
So there we were back at Goldminer's Daughter again this morning, along with what seemed like the rest of humanity. While the masses lined up for Collins we again walked up to the Kitty and found a little place to call our own for a few runs. We're still testing the GE X600 camera, so we shot a lot of photos again this morning even though the weather wasn't terribly conducive to doing so.
While this storm forecast was almost a bust -- the total of a foot was near the bottom of the forecast range -- it was its quality that made this weekend special. Last night's snow, believe it or not, tallied 7 inches of 1.8% water content snow. This stuff defined the term "cold smoke," and on top of the 5 inches from Friday night, where it was untracked it was enough to keep you insulated from the base on anything that wasn't bumped up, meeting my own personal definition of a powder day. Even when tracked it stayed soft and fluffy, and in a way skied a bit more consistently. No matter how you look at it, this stuff was pixie dust of the highest quality.
Because so many people were skiing in-bounds, we spent much of our day out of bounds. The title of this post is "Alta/Snowbird," and we did in fact ski Snowbird terrain, we just didn't ride any Snowbird lifts today. Beyond that, I can tell you that we rode virtually every open lift at Alta today at least once, save for Sugarloaf, and enjoyed the deepest untracked of the day -- thigh deep in a certain little gully -- at the very end of our day. And beyond that, if I told you any more about where we went today I'd have to kill you. :twisted:
By lunchtime the liftlines subsided to negligible levels and never returned, although we were all on the road by 3 p.m. to avoid the crush heading down the canyon at closing time.
When I got home the pilot had gone out on the hot water heater. A word of advice: never, ever put your face in front of the opening to the burner to see if it lights after you get the pilot started again. :-"
