Day 48: Dr. Powderlove
or
"How I Learned to Love The Reverend"
It's been a week since I was last on skis, with the past 7 days feeling like a truck ran me over. Thank you, bronchitis. As recently as yesterday I was walking through the grocery store feeling all spacey and light-headed, and even last night I awoke at 2 am having a coughing fit. But this morning, I finally felt close to "normal" (as normal as can be, that is) and I was itching to go.
As I was sitting things out, Alta picked up some snow on Monday, another 26 inches on Friday, and it was supposed to snow more today. Things are finally coming together. Stuff that's been exposed all winter is finally getting covered, and the big'un is forecast to hit us Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday this week.
I also managed to put my new skis together this week. Silvretta Pure Freeride AT bindings arrived Thursday, were mounted to my new G3 Reverends on Friday, and I was ready to roll.
The Kid had to work at Brighton today, so I dropped him off at the Big Cottonwood Park-and-Ride and continued on up Little Cottonwood Canyon where I met up with Sam, Sam's kid Dean, and Sam's brother Tom visiting from Albuquerque. We were in line for Collins about 5 minutes before opening just as snow started to fall. I was a bit tentative on our first run to feel out the new skis, find their center, and adjust my technique accordingly. Tom stuck to the groomers as Dean and I cut corners on Mambo through shin-deep sections, then dropped into the trees between Mambo and Main Street, finishing up on Corkscrew.
We were just boarding Collins for our second run when Marc_C called, skiing with Dale and Pat. We agreed to regroup at the bottom of Collins, and took our second run into the untracked top section of Fred's Trees which skied exceptionally well. I was starting to get the feel of the new skis, but still didn't quite have the confidence to let them roll. We cut across the Tower 10 Traverse into lightly tracked Watson Trees, and returned to the base via Schuss Gully.
We waited a while for Marc_C, Dale and Pat, but after some time we pushed on as the other folks I was skiing with had to leave no later than noon and I didn't have the heart to hold them up any longer. We opted to work our way over to Supreme, and although Devil's Elbow was crowded I had the adjacent Razorback all to myself, covered with soft, fluffy bumps.
We skied two more runs off Supreme -- No. 9 trees/Mama Bear/White Squaw combos -- before it was 11 am and the others decided to leave an hour early. The temperature was dropping, the wind was increasing, and the falling snow blew cold against the face. I headed to Alf's to warm up and beat the crowd with an early lunch when I met up with Dale, Pat and Marc_C.
It was after lunch, though, when things started to come together. I finally got myself dialed in to these new skis, and holy crap, I felt like a rock star! It seemed that I could do no wrong -- they're incredibly quick-turning in loose snow, and when things are too tight to do even that their swing weight allows me to bring them around in a snap (skis/bindings weigh only 6 lb per foot). They have an incredible amount of camber -- there's no way to get the brakes to lock together, they're so far apart -- and that camber gives them unbelievable life and spring. I was taking lines at speeds that I've never considered before. Pat found a new nickname for me, "the wind-up toy." Despite their light weight, they plowed through powder and chowder with incredible stability. I'm in love.
We endured Sugarloaf heading straight into the wind and blowing snow to hit Supreme several more times, most often the same combo as earlier, but with one trip through Catherine's Area as well. Heading out the lower traverse to parts of Patsy Marley revealed knee-deep untracked fluff. While we were at Supreme, at 1:30 pm the storm moved in in earnest, dropping snow at 2-inch-per-hour rates. It was still pounding as I drove down canyon at the end of the day.
Dale and Pat quit early -- Dale is still enduring pain from a rather major knee surgery late summer -- and Marc_C and I decided to head lower to more tolerable weather conditions and ski three laps on Sunnyside, skiing Vail Ridge twice and once heading out Crooked Mile to the Albion summer road to ski the out-of-bounds lower slopes below the road. Once again, more untracked.
I quit at 3. I don't know if it's the life in these new skis, their light weight, or a combination of the two, but I can't remember any time in recent memory that my legs weren't the least bit rubbery at 3 pm, especially after 13 runs and 16,300 vertical feet. As I said, I'm in love.
Crowds were busy this morning, as today was the last day of the President's Week holiday, but clearly many folks had afternoon flights for the place cleared out beautifully after lunch.
We're skiing the best snow of the season, and things are only going to get better. Alta picked up another 6 inches today, and the evening news predicts another 4-8 inches tonight. Then a massive storm is forecast for Tuesday-Thursday, and early predictions are in the three- to four-foot range. Even before this storm, though, just about everything is covered. Alders are finally getting buried. Today was the first day this season that I didn't hit a single rock anywhere all day.
Sorry, folks...no pictures today, but with those snowfall rates you wouldn't have seen much, anyway.
or
"How I Learned to Love The Reverend"
It's been a week since I was last on skis, with the past 7 days feeling like a truck ran me over. Thank you, bronchitis. As recently as yesterday I was walking through the grocery store feeling all spacey and light-headed, and even last night I awoke at 2 am having a coughing fit. But this morning, I finally felt close to "normal" (as normal as can be, that is) and I was itching to go.
As I was sitting things out, Alta picked up some snow on Monday, another 26 inches on Friday, and it was supposed to snow more today. Things are finally coming together. Stuff that's been exposed all winter is finally getting covered, and the big'un is forecast to hit us Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday this week.
I also managed to put my new skis together this week. Silvretta Pure Freeride AT bindings arrived Thursday, were mounted to my new G3 Reverends on Friday, and I was ready to roll.
The Kid had to work at Brighton today, so I dropped him off at the Big Cottonwood Park-and-Ride and continued on up Little Cottonwood Canyon where I met up with Sam, Sam's kid Dean, and Sam's brother Tom visiting from Albuquerque. We were in line for Collins about 5 minutes before opening just as snow started to fall. I was a bit tentative on our first run to feel out the new skis, find their center, and adjust my technique accordingly. Tom stuck to the groomers as Dean and I cut corners on Mambo through shin-deep sections, then dropped into the trees between Mambo and Main Street, finishing up on Corkscrew.
We were just boarding Collins for our second run when Marc_C called, skiing with Dale and Pat. We agreed to regroup at the bottom of Collins, and took our second run into the untracked top section of Fred's Trees which skied exceptionally well. I was starting to get the feel of the new skis, but still didn't quite have the confidence to let them roll. We cut across the Tower 10 Traverse into lightly tracked Watson Trees, and returned to the base via Schuss Gully.
We waited a while for Marc_C, Dale and Pat, but after some time we pushed on as the other folks I was skiing with had to leave no later than noon and I didn't have the heart to hold them up any longer. We opted to work our way over to Supreme, and although Devil's Elbow was crowded I had the adjacent Razorback all to myself, covered with soft, fluffy bumps.
We skied two more runs off Supreme -- No. 9 trees/Mama Bear/White Squaw combos -- before it was 11 am and the others decided to leave an hour early. The temperature was dropping, the wind was increasing, and the falling snow blew cold against the face. I headed to Alf's to warm up and beat the crowd with an early lunch when I met up with Dale, Pat and Marc_C.
It was after lunch, though, when things started to come together. I finally got myself dialed in to these new skis, and holy crap, I felt like a rock star! It seemed that I could do no wrong -- they're incredibly quick-turning in loose snow, and when things are too tight to do even that their swing weight allows me to bring them around in a snap (skis/bindings weigh only 6 lb per foot). They have an incredible amount of camber -- there's no way to get the brakes to lock together, they're so far apart -- and that camber gives them unbelievable life and spring. I was taking lines at speeds that I've never considered before. Pat found a new nickname for me, "the wind-up toy." Despite their light weight, they plowed through powder and chowder with incredible stability. I'm in love.
We endured Sugarloaf heading straight into the wind and blowing snow to hit Supreme several more times, most often the same combo as earlier, but with one trip through Catherine's Area as well. Heading out the lower traverse to parts of Patsy Marley revealed knee-deep untracked fluff. While we were at Supreme, at 1:30 pm the storm moved in in earnest, dropping snow at 2-inch-per-hour rates. It was still pounding as I drove down canyon at the end of the day.
Dale and Pat quit early -- Dale is still enduring pain from a rather major knee surgery late summer -- and Marc_C and I decided to head lower to more tolerable weather conditions and ski three laps on Sunnyside, skiing Vail Ridge twice and once heading out Crooked Mile to the Albion summer road to ski the out-of-bounds lower slopes below the road. Once again, more untracked.
I quit at 3. I don't know if it's the life in these new skis, their light weight, or a combination of the two, but I can't remember any time in recent memory that my legs weren't the least bit rubbery at 3 pm, especially after 13 runs and 16,300 vertical feet. As I said, I'm in love.
Crowds were busy this morning, as today was the last day of the President's Week holiday, but clearly many folks had afternoon flights for the place cleared out beautifully after lunch.
We're skiing the best snow of the season, and things are only going to get better. Alta picked up another 6 inches today, and the evening news predicts another 4-8 inches tonight. Then a massive storm is forecast for Tuesday-Thursday, and early predictions are in the three- to four-foot range. Even before this storm, though, just about everything is covered. Alders are finally getting buried. Today was the first day this season that I didn't hit a single rock anywhere all day.
Sorry, folks...no pictures today, but with those snowfall rates you wouldn't have seen much, anyway.
