Day 36: An unexpected powder day.
Last night's weak front dropped an unexpected amount of snow on the Wasatch Mountains. When I ran out to pick up The Kid at a friend's house at 11:30 p.m. I was pleasantly surprised to see the 4x4/chain restrictions up for the canyons. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see them still up this morning. Drew Hardesty perhaps put it best in this morning's avalanche report:
Half full indeed.
I met up with skivittler Bruce Shenker and a half dozen or so of his buds from back east who are staying at Alta Lodge. Bob Dangerous called this morning to meet up, but he was nowhere to be seen at the opening bell. Marc_C wasn't sure if he was coming up, and The Kid was feeling under the weather and stayed home.
With a long opening line for Collins we first headed up Wildcat and into Westward Ho. Sure, you could still feel the old bumps underneath, but it skied very, very well. By the time we got back down the Collins line had evaporated and we struck off for High Notch -- but only after Collins mysteriously stopped for 8 minutes as we hung from the cable just above the angle station.
After hiking up the ridgeline we saw to our dismay that the High Notch gate remained closed, so we worked our way over to Gunsight. En route we hooked up with tagalong Vinny from New York (no, I'm not kidding, but a guy with a last name Guido can get away with that!) who's just bought a place out here. The first few turns had already been skied out, but Bruce, Vinny and I worked our way left onto Thirds to find untracked down to Greeley Hill. Great stuff!
Somewhere along the way we lost the others, so we rode up Sunnyside and Sugarloaf to head out to Backside. That was wind-whipped and bumpy underneath -- fun, but tricky as hell. We took the road back to Sugarloaf, and headed down Devil's Elbow to access Supreme. Bruce's friends rode the lift overhead, so we waited for them and regrouped for a trip out Catherine's to Patsy Marley -- glorious untracked. At the bottom we managed to inadvertantly get separated from Vinny -- he got low for a return to Supreme, and while the last we saw him he was skating uphill, he never arrived at Supreme. Sorry Vinny!
Patrol has finally opened the Spiny Chutes for the first time this winter, and while discretion said otherwise we headed out there. Sure enough, the sun crust beneath the thin new snow was heinous, but by repeatedly traversing left onto north-facing aspects we found good snow.
One more trip up Supreme and it was time for lunch at Alf's where we were joined by another skivittler out visiting, Kyle Erlandsen. We all headed out to Sugarloaf for a run together after lunch, but at the lift queue Kyle bumped into the president of his company and thus headed in a different direction. The rest of us braved the High Traverse, and a ridiculously boney Greeley side of Piss Pass, for a fluffy run down Eagle's Nest.
By this point I had to head to the airport to pick up a friend, so I bid the others -- and the day -- farewell.
Last night's weak front dropped an unexpected amount of snow on the Wasatch Mountains. When I ran out to pick up The Kid at a friend's house at 11:30 p.m. I was pleasantly surprised to see the 4x4/chain restrictions up for the canyons. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see them still up this morning. Drew Hardesty perhaps put it best in this morning's avalanche report:
Half full indeed.
I met up with skivittler Bruce Shenker and a half dozen or so of his buds from back east who are staying at Alta Lodge. Bob Dangerous called this morning to meet up, but he was nowhere to be seen at the opening bell. Marc_C wasn't sure if he was coming up, and The Kid was feeling under the weather and stayed home.
With a long opening line for Collins we first headed up Wildcat and into Westward Ho. Sure, you could still feel the old bumps underneath, but it skied very, very well. By the time we got back down the Collins line had evaporated and we struck off for High Notch -- but only after Collins mysteriously stopped for 8 minutes as we hung from the cable just above the angle station.
After hiking up the ridgeline we saw to our dismay that the High Notch gate remained closed, so we worked our way over to Gunsight. En route we hooked up with tagalong Vinny from New York (no, I'm not kidding, but a guy with a last name Guido can get away with that!) who's just bought a place out here. The first few turns had already been skied out, but Bruce, Vinny and I worked our way left onto Thirds to find untracked down to Greeley Hill. Great stuff!
Somewhere along the way we lost the others, so we rode up Sunnyside and Sugarloaf to head out to Backside. That was wind-whipped and bumpy underneath -- fun, but tricky as hell. We took the road back to Sugarloaf, and headed down Devil's Elbow to access Supreme. Bruce's friends rode the lift overhead, so we waited for them and regrouped for a trip out Catherine's to Patsy Marley -- glorious untracked. At the bottom we managed to inadvertantly get separated from Vinny -- he got low for a return to Supreme, and while the last we saw him he was skating uphill, he never arrived at Supreme. Sorry Vinny!
Patrol has finally opened the Spiny Chutes for the first time this winter, and while discretion said otherwise we headed out there. Sure enough, the sun crust beneath the thin new snow was heinous, but by repeatedly traversing left onto north-facing aspects we found good snow.
One more trip up Supreme and it was time for lunch at Alf's where we were joined by another skivittler out visiting, Kyle Erlandsen. We all headed out to Sugarloaf for a run together after lunch, but at the lift queue Kyle bumped into the president of his company and thus headed in a different direction. The rest of us braved the High Traverse, and a ridiculously boney Greeley side of Piss Pass, for a fluffy run down Eagle's Nest.
By this point I had to head to the airport to pick up a friend, so I bid the others -- and the day -- farewell.
