Day 28: The LCC Road game.
With a major storm in progress during Christmas week, I knew that I'd have to play the game effectively while we waited for the Little Cottonwood Canyon Road to open. I wasn't incredibly prompt when I got into line at 8:45 a.m. for an anticipated 9 a.m. road opening, but I was surprised to find myself in good position.
The road actually opened around 9:15, but after only moving forward a few hundred yards things inexplicably ground again to a halt. Dale and I were exchanging frequent phone calls as he was 25 or so cars ahead of me. We at first thought it was a Nissan Armada the driver of which managed to somehow put it sideways into the ditch. I really couldn't figure that one out -- there were no tracks entering the ditch in the direction of travel.
That wasn't the issue, however, for we spent far more time stopped than moving for another 45 minutes. A bit further up the road we discovered the real problem: some db in a 2WD Kia Sportage made it past the UPD's checkpoint at the mouth of the canyon as the deputy must've assumed it was AWD. This dipshit was spinning wheels wildly and barely swerving up the road, gumming up the works for literally thousands of people behind him. Asshole. Dale managed to get around him, and I'm happy to report that by the time I caught up to him he was getting a police escort back down the canyon. For delaying thousands of people for 45 minutes, IMO the $500 fine isn't high enough. Really, were it not for him things would've gone incredibly smoothly getting up the canyon. Thanks a lot, db. Be happy that none of us behind you knows who you are.
The road was perhaps the slipperiest I've ever seen going uphill in LCC. Even with AWD I lost traction numerous times between Tanner's and Snowbird Entry 1 as there was a solid layer of ice below deep salt-loosened slush. We were moving at 20 mph after getting past the moron, but thanks largely to his stupidity I didn't board Collins for my first lift ride until 10:30 a.m. Interlodge, however, had been lifted earlier in the morning. Even though I was one of the first up canyon the mountain opened on time and folks staying up there got over an hour of country club skiing before those of us from down canyon finally arrived on the scene.
But not all of us made it. Skidog left his house in Sandy at 9:15 when the road opened. He called as I was driving past Tanner's, and he was at the intersection of 9400 S and Wasatch Blvd. After booting up in GMD I was heading out the door to board the lift and he called again. By now Skidog was at...9400 S and Wasatch Blvd. He reported one vehicle through the traffic light at the intersection every three light cycles. In a 30-minute period he had moved a whopping 100 yards. Eventually he gave up and turned around to go home. And all of this was caused by a single db in a 2WD Kia.
It was still worth the wait, but damn, was it cold! Snow was deep and fluffy where sheltered, but wind affected in other areas like on Backside. Once you got down over the crest into Glitch and Glatch Gullies on lower Backside, however, it was out of the wind and deep and fluffy again.
Did I mention that it was cold? We rode Sugarloaf and planned to return for a second lap on Backside, so we headed across the EBT. Or rather, we walked across the EBT. The snow was so cold that the skis had no glide whatsoever. Add to that the sandblasting wind that relentlessly sprayed our face with snow blowing up the slope so hard that much of the time you couldn't even see the skis on your feet. By the time we reached Germania Pass I had the worst screaming ice cream headache ever so we instead headed into Collins Gulch to warm up at Baldy Brews.
Between the cold, the wind and the slow snow I called it a day around 12:30 p.m. and headed back down. Before that, however, I spotted something in the liftline that I really, truly don't want to know how it happened:
That must've been one heluva Mexican meal après ski.
With a major storm in progress during Christmas week, I knew that I'd have to play the game effectively while we waited for the Little Cottonwood Canyon Road to open. I wasn't incredibly prompt when I got into line at 8:45 a.m. for an anticipated 9 a.m. road opening, but I was surprised to find myself in good position.
The road actually opened around 9:15, but after only moving forward a few hundred yards things inexplicably ground again to a halt. Dale and I were exchanging frequent phone calls as he was 25 or so cars ahead of me. We at first thought it was a Nissan Armada the driver of which managed to somehow put it sideways into the ditch. I really couldn't figure that one out -- there were no tracks entering the ditch in the direction of travel.
That wasn't the issue, however, for we spent far more time stopped than moving for another 45 minutes. A bit further up the road we discovered the real problem: some db in a 2WD Kia Sportage made it past the UPD's checkpoint at the mouth of the canyon as the deputy must've assumed it was AWD. This dipshit was spinning wheels wildly and barely swerving up the road, gumming up the works for literally thousands of people behind him. Asshole. Dale managed to get around him, and I'm happy to report that by the time I caught up to him he was getting a police escort back down the canyon. For delaying thousands of people for 45 minutes, IMO the $500 fine isn't high enough. Really, were it not for him things would've gone incredibly smoothly getting up the canyon. Thanks a lot, db. Be happy that none of us behind you knows who you are.
The road was perhaps the slipperiest I've ever seen going uphill in LCC. Even with AWD I lost traction numerous times between Tanner's and Snowbird Entry 1 as there was a solid layer of ice below deep salt-loosened slush. We were moving at 20 mph after getting past the moron, but thanks largely to his stupidity I didn't board Collins for my first lift ride until 10:30 a.m. Interlodge, however, had been lifted earlier in the morning. Even though I was one of the first up canyon the mountain opened on time and folks staying up there got over an hour of country club skiing before those of us from down canyon finally arrived on the scene.
But not all of us made it. Skidog left his house in Sandy at 9:15 when the road opened. He called as I was driving past Tanner's, and he was at the intersection of 9400 S and Wasatch Blvd. After booting up in GMD I was heading out the door to board the lift and he called again. By now Skidog was at...9400 S and Wasatch Blvd. He reported one vehicle through the traffic light at the intersection every three light cycles. In a 30-minute period he had moved a whopping 100 yards. Eventually he gave up and turned around to go home. And all of this was caused by a single db in a 2WD Kia.
It was still worth the wait, but damn, was it cold! Snow was deep and fluffy where sheltered, but wind affected in other areas like on Backside. Once you got down over the crest into Glitch and Glatch Gullies on lower Backside, however, it was out of the wind and deep and fluffy again.
Did I mention that it was cold? We rode Sugarloaf and planned to return for a second lap on Backside, so we headed across the EBT. Or rather, we walked across the EBT. The snow was so cold that the skis had no glide whatsoever. Add to that the sandblasting wind that relentlessly sprayed our face with snow blowing up the slope so hard that much of the time you couldn't even see the skis on your feet. By the time we reached Germania Pass I had the worst screaming ice cream headache ever so we instead headed into Collins Gulch to warm up at Baldy Brews.
Between the cold, the wind and the slow snow I called it a day around 12:30 p.m. and headed back down. Before that, however, I spotted something in the liftline that I really, truly don't want to know how it happened:
That must've been one heluva Mexican meal après ski.
