Day 86: An April spring day in May
I headed up to Snowbird yesterday for a few hours in the hot sun before things would get manky. Bobby Danger, Telejon, Dale, Pat and I would all meet up at the Bypass Road, and salida and friend pulled in amongst us as well. Bobby struck out mere moments ahead of us, saying that he'd meet us on the Tram Plaza but when Jon and I arrived Bobby was nowhere to be found, having boarded the 9 a.m. Tram. Dale and Pat skied onto the plaza minutes after we did and walked right past us, boarding the Tram. By the time we got our crap together the Tram doors had closed, leaving us behind. :roll:
So Jon and I caught the next bucket, accompanied by salida and his friend who were both heading for Pipeline, a steep, narrow sliver of a chute descending from the summit of West Twin. Access to Pipeline just opened for the first time this season this week. The touring gates were scheduled to close early at 10 a.m. due to daytime heating and if they were to catch Pipeline they'd have to move. salida, I'm looking forward to seeing those pics!
Jon and I naturally headed first to Mineral Basin, skiing the groomed Powder Paradise that had softened perfectly in the morning sun. We returned to Hidden Peak to find Bobby standing there with Dale and Pat, and Bobby was itching to hike Baldy to ski Living the Dream. I was agreeable but wanted my pack to stash my skis, so I headed down the still refrozen corduroy of Chip's to get my pack out of the car while Bobby and Jon took another lap in Mineral. When I arrived at the car, though, I remembered that I left my pack at home. #-o
I left Jon a voicemail begging off a Baldy hike without a pack, but there they were still waiting for me at Hidden Peak and managed to convince me to shoulder the skis for the hike, so off we went down to the Peruvian ridgeline and started hoofing it. By the time we reached the gate at the High Baldy Traverse, however, the summit hike was already closed. ](*,) No matter, we'd ski a line I've never bagged before: Chamonix 4.
It really was a fun line, although it was already getting a bit soft and hunks breaking free from the cornice line on skier's right were making me a bit uncomfortable. The line is shaped like a funnel, choking down to about 20 feet at the end before spilling out onto the apron in Mineral Basin. From there, though, we caught the Secret Traverse across to Baldy Express and began the short hike to Sugarloaf Pass to enter Alta.
From here we took our time to savor the run, pausing first at Sugarloaf Pass while a skier de-skinned at the top of the Sugarloaf chair, then heading across the EBT and encountering three other skinners at Germania Pass atop Collins, including Wasatch Weather Weenie Jim Steenburgh and his 13-year-old son Eric, who had just finished his first ascent on skins. We spent some time yapping with Jim and Eric before heading down Main Street. Alta was kind enough to groom everything after closing last Sunday, and the consolidated snow on Main Street was darned near perfect corn. We cut over to the bottom of the Wildcat Road at the top of Aggie's Alley and began hoofing it once again, this time up the road to the top of Wildcat. Alta's kindness shone once again, leaving a chair right at the unloading ramp shadowed from the strong mid-day sun by the bullwheel, so Bobby and I used the lounge chair and Jon the lift shack to pause again to take in the beauty of our surroundings. Sitting with skis on in that Wildcat chair it damned near felt like the joint was still open. :lol:
Stepping back into our skis, we thought about a Comma Chute but ascertained that it was likely still a bit stiff. We headed out across Punch Bowl into the Nose Chutes, finding the snow even on northeastern aspects already too manky. Direct north-facing Wildcat in the area of Westward Ho was tough going, too, so we figured the best option was the westerly aspect out the (no longer there) Ho Gate, which was tricky but not nearly as manky as the other options. It's a good thing, too, that we didn't ski Comma for looking up from upper Whodunnit we saw nothing but gigantic balls of wet avalanche debris.
It was getting to sloppy for me. I pulled up to a stop adjacent to my car while Jon and Bobby headed down to Snowbird Center for a bite to eat. I spent the afternoon in shorts and a T-shirt working on my yard, which even in that attire was a hot, sweaty affair as temperatures in the Salt Lake Valley reached a high for the year thus far. Today we've got another storm moving in which will start with a high rain line but drop tonight and tomorrow, leaving a predicted additional 14-24 inches of snow upon our deep spring snowpack. That will of course smooth out the last of the old tracks at Alta, setting things up for the real spring corn season ahead. The storm hasn't yet started but it's a grey morning with temps up the already into the low 40s, so I suspect that it may be a rather unpleasant morning. I'm planning to get a few runs in before the initial band of rain arrives.
I headed up to Snowbird yesterday for a few hours in the hot sun before things would get manky. Bobby Danger, Telejon, Dale, Pat and I would all meet up at the Bypass Road, and salida and friend pulled in amongst us as well. Bobby struck out mere moments ahead of us, saying that he'd meet us on the Tram Plaza but when Jon and I arrived Bobby was nowhere to be found, having boarded the 9 a.m. Tram. Dale and Pat skied onto the plaza minutes after we did and walked right past us, boarding the Tram. By the time we got our crap together the Tram doors had closed, leaving us behind. :roll:
So Jon and I caught the next bucket, accompanied by salida and his friend who were both heading for Pipeline, a steep, narrow sliver of a chute descending from the summit of West Twin. Access to Pipeline just opened for the first time this season this week. The touring gates were scheduled to close early at 10 a.m. due to daytime heating and if they were to catch Pipeline they'd have to move. salida, I'm looking forward to seeing those pics!
Jon and I naturally headed first to Mineral Basin, skiing the groomed Powder Paradise that had softened perfectly in the morning sun. We returned to Hidden Peak to find Bobby standing there with Dale and Pat, and Bobby was itching to hike Baldy to ski Living the Dream. I was agreeable but wanted my pack to stash my skis, so I headed down the still refrozen corduroy of Chip's to get my pack out of the car while Bobby and Jon took another lap in Mineral. When I arrived at the car, though, I remembered that I left my pack at home. #-o
I left Jon a voicemail begging off a Baldy hike without a pack, but there they were still waiting for me at Hidden Peak and managed to convince me to shoulder the skis for the hike, so off we went down to the Peruvian ridgeline and started hoofing it. By the time we reached the gate at the High Baldy Traverse, however, the summit hike was already closed. ](*,) No matter, we'd ski a line I've never bagged before: Chamonix 4.
It really was a fun line, although it was already getting a bit soft and hunks breaking free from the cornice line on skier's right were making me a bit uncomfortable. The line is shaped like a funnel, choking down to about 20 feet at the end before spilling out onto the apron in Mineral Basin. From there, though, we caught the Secret Traverse across to Baldy Express and began the short hike to Sugarloaf Pass to enter Alta.
From here we took our time to savor the run, pausing first at Sugarloaf Pass while a skier de-skinned at the top of the Sugarloaf chair, then heading across the EBT and encountering three other skinners at Germania Pass atop Collins, including Wasatch Weather Weenie Jim Steenburgh and his 13-year-old son Eric, who had just finished his first ascent on skins. We spent some time yapping with Jim and Eric before heading down Main Street. Alta was kind enough to groom everything after closing last Sunday, and the consolidated snow on Main Street was darned near perfect corn. We cut over to the bottom of the Wildcat Road at the top of Aggie's Alley and began hoofing it once again, this time up the road to the top of Wildcat. Alta's kindness shone once again, leaving a chair right at the unloading ramp shadowed from the strong mid-day sun by the bullwheel, so Bobby and I used the lounge chair and Jon the lift shack to pause again to take in the beauty of our surroundings. Sitting with skis on in that Wildcat chair it damned near felt like the joint was still open. :lol:
Stepping back into our skis, we thought about a Comma Chute but ascertained that it was likely still a bit stiff. We headed out across Punch Bowl into the Nose Chutes, finding the snow even on northeastern aspects already too manky. Direct north-facing Wildcat in the area of Westward Ho was tough going, too, so we figured the best option was the westerly aspect out the (no longer there) Ho Gate, which was tricky but not nearly as manky as the other options. It's a good thing, too, that we didn't ski Comma for looking up from upper Whodunnit we saw nothing but gigantic balls of wet avalanche debris.
It was getting to sloppy for me. I pulled up to a stop adjacent to my car while Jon and Bobby headed down to Snowbird Center for a bite to eat. I spent the afternoon in shorts and a T-shirt working on my yard, which even in that attire was a hot, sweaty affair as temperatures in the Salt Lake Valley reached a high for the year thus far. Today we've got another storm moving in which will start with a high rain line but drop tonight and tomorrow, leaving a predicted additional 14-24 inches of snow upon our deep spring snowpack. That will of course smooth out the last of the old tracks at Alta, setting things up for the real spring corn season ahead. The storm hasn't yet started but it's a grey morning with temps up the already into the low 40s, so I suspect that it may be a rather unpleasant morning. I'm planning to get a few runs in before the initial band of rain arrives.
