Day 10: Terrain opening in a big way.
Today was a big day for terrain openings, including Supreme at Alta and Mineral Basin and Gad II at Snowbird. Virtually all lifts are running now at both resorts, with most marquee terrain open save for Backside and Spiny Chutes at Alta. Nothing is closed for lack of snow, it's closed for snow instability, and they were working Backside like crazy today including putting up ropelines and signage, which leads me to believe that it may have opened after I left at 1 p.m. I've heard through the grapevine that it did.
Bobby Danger, Skidog, Tele Jon and I were determined to try to cover some ground today. We were at first accompanied by jtran, who was with us until we lost him after the second run on Supreme. It felt good to be back on my favorite chairlift again for the first time this season!
I personally found the way last weekend's wet snow set up to be somewhat stiff, although the others didn't necessarily agree. Perhaps it was just that I never felt dialed in today. We didn't even feel compelled to head out to Catherine's as there was plenty of stuff nearer in that was skiing just as well.
We then boarded Sugarloaf, where the snow covered a lot more of the Chartreuse-area stuff than I had expected it to.
We were on a mission to go sample the newly-opened Mineral Basin at Snowbird.
Aspects were funny, and the terrain below Sugarloaf Pass was cream cheesy in places, and ever-so-slightly crusted in others.
We postulated that with its aspect, Mineral Basin likely did better than most places from last weekend's storm's southwesterly flow.
We headed up MBE to Hidden Peak and into P-Gulch, the first time this season that I've visited either location. Bobby headed for Macaroni Chute and we foolishly followed. Only one small rock peeking through in the center of the chute, but it's much tighter than normal and terrain pretty much dictated where you'd turn.
We shot down to the base of Snowbird and boarded the Peruvian Express, returning to Mineral Basin via the tunnel.
Emerging from the mountain's innards, we noticed that they'd opened the gate at Hilary Step. We high-tailed it to the bottom of Mineral Basin, back up the MBE and out across the Step, still finding a ton of untracked out below the Sunday Cliffs.
By now we were getting hungry, so we kept a high line out of the Sunday Cliffs in order to reach the Baldy Express to return to Alta and back into Albion Basin for a bite at Alf's, where we ran into Marc_C. I joined the boys riding back up Sugarloaf, but I was already fairly shot for the day so I returned to my truck via Collins Gulch while the others struck out for Gad Valley at Snowbird to sample the Rasta Chutes.
Bring on Christmas week, we're primed! Perhaps a storm on Tuesday will freshen things up, with a better looking storm projected to follow around Christmas Day.
Today was a big day for terrain openings, including Supreme at Alta and Mineral Basin and Gad II at Snowbird. Virtually all lifts are running now at both resorts, with most marquee terrain open save for Backside and Spiny Chutes at Alta. Nothing is closed for lack of snow, it's closed for snow instability, and they were working Backside like crazy today including putting up ropelines and signage, which leads me to believe that it may have opened after I left at 1 p.m. I've heard through the grapevine that it did.
Bobby Danger, Skidog, Tele Jon and I were determined to try to cover some ground today. We were at first accompanied by jtran, who was with us until we lost him after the second run on Supreme. It felt good to be back on my favorite chairlift again for the first time this season!
I personally found the way last weekend's wet snow set up to be somewhat stiff, although the others didn't necessarily agree. Perhaps it was just that I never felt dialed in today. We didn't even feel compelled to head out to Catherine's as there was plenty of stuff nearer in that was skiing just as well.
We then boarded Sugarloaf, where the snow covered a lot more of the Chartreuse-area stuff than I had expected it to.
We were on a mission to go sample the newly-opened Mineral Basin at Snowbird.
Aspects were funny, and the terrain below Sugarloaf Pass was cream cheesy in places, and ever-so-slightly crusted in others.
We postulated that with its aspect, Mineral Basin likely did better than most places from last weekend's storm's southwesterly flow.
We headed up MBE to Hidden Peak and into P-Gulch, the first time this season that I've visited either location. Bobby headed for Macaroni Chute and we foolishly followed. Only one small rock peeking through in the center of the chute, but it's much tighter than normal and terrain pretty much dictated where you'd turn.
We shot down to the base of Snowbird and boarded the Peruvian Express, returning to Mineral Basin via the tunnel.
Emerging from the mountain's innards, we noticed that they'd opened the gate at Hilary Step. We high-tailed it to the bottom of Mineral Basin, back up the MBE and out across the Step, still finding a ton of untracked out below the Sunday Cliffs.
By now we were getting hungry, so we kept a high line out of the Sunday Cliffs in order to reach the Baldy Express to return to Alta and back into Albion Basin for a bite at Alf's, where we ran into Marc_C. I joined the boys riding back up Sugarloaf, but I was already fairly shot for the day so I returned to my truck via Collins Gulch while the others struck out for Gad Valley at Snowbird to sample the Rasta Chutes.
Bring on Christmas week, we're primed! Perhaps a storm on Tuesday will freshen things up, with a better looking storm projected to follow around Christmas Day.