Day 31: Beats workin'
As I pulled into the parking lot at my office this morning, my cell phone twinkled to life. It was a text message from Mira:
Gee, thanks. ](*,) Nice way to start a work day. :roll:
I checked my calendar...meeting at 10 a.m., nothing else. In the meantime, though, the destination got moved to Park City Mountain Resort. It was cloudless, windless and destined for the mid-40s in Park City. I could go for the afternoon. Why not?
At 12:30 p.m. I met Mira at the base of the new Crescent lift as she was attentively perusing the trail map, trying to figure out the layout of the place. We headed up.
The others were over on McConkey's, so we skied down to Silverlode and headed over to McConkey's (south-facing Mid-Mountain Meadows was perfectly sun-softened), finding Sima at the lift corral and the others barely on the lift. We all reconvened at the top, but the rest of the crew was heading for a bite to eat. Sima and Mira wanted to keep skiing.
So we headed straight to Jupiter while the others made tracks for the Summit House.
With no new snow the obvious choice was north-facing, so I went straight to Portuguese Gap and found the dry, chalky snow I was looking for. Mira and I opted to try south-facing aspen trees down low and were disappointed by the crud, not quite softened to perfection.
The second lap was more north-facing off Jupe on the West Face -- not bad, but it left me saying, "We need fresh snow." It wasn't quite the same as the well-shaded Portuguese Gap.
We planned to reconvene with the others at the bottom of King Con, but when they weren't yet there we went up King Con and Silverlode to meet them outside the Summit House. We then spent many runs lapping groomers both on King Con and Silverlode. By 3 p.m., though, skiing groomers was getting old, and Mira thought that the trees off Motherlode might be softening. We were willing to try.
And it delivered! Good call, Mira! Just slightly softened, the trees in Motherlode Meadows gave us just what we were looking for over two runs right up to the closing bell.
Snowboarder Alain was suddenly all smiles, finding what for him were the runs of the day, and we returned to the base via the aspens to skier's left of Shaft, which weren't half bad, either -- certainly far better than the slick manmade on Shaft itself. We had a couple of beers après-ski at the Pig Pen Saloon before they shuffled off to dinner in Park City and I headed home.
As I pulled into the parking lot at my office this morning, my cell phone twinkled to life. It was a text message from Mira:
Hey Marc, do you think conditions at Solitude would be OK today? Do you want to come with us?
Gee, thanks. ](*,) Nice way to start a work day. :roll:
I checked my calendar...meeting at 10 a.m., nothing else. In the meantime, though, the destination got moved to Park City Mountain Resort. It was cloudless, windless and destined for the mid-40s in Park City. I could go for the afternoon. Why not?
At 12:30 p.m. I met Mira at the base of the new Crescent lift as she was attentively perusing the trail map, trying to figure out the layout of the place. We headed up.
The others were over on McConkey's, so we skied down to Silverlode and headed over to McConkey's (south-facing Mid-Mountain Meadows was perfectly sun-softened), finding Sima at the lift corral and the others barely on the lift. We all reconvened at the top, but the rest of the crew was heading for a bite to eat. Sima and Mira wanted to keep skiing.
So we headed straight to Jupiter while the others made tracks for the Summit House.
With no new snow the obvious choice was north-facing, so I went straight to Portuguese Gap and found the dry, chalky snow I was looking for. Mira and I opted to try south-facing aspen trees down low and were disappointed by the crud, not quite softened to perfection.
The second lap was more north-facing off Jupe on the West Face -- not bad, but it left me saying, "We need fresh snow." It wasn't quite the same as the well-shaded Portuguese Gap.
We planned to reconvene with the others at the bottom of King Con, but when they weren't yet there we went up King Con and Silverlode to meet them outside the Summit House. We then spent many runs lapping groomers both on King Con and Silverlode. By 3 p.m., though, skiing groomers was getting old, and Mira thought that the trees off Motherlode might be softening. We were willing to try.
And it delivered! Good call, Mira! Just slightly softened, the trees in Motherlode Meadows gave us just what we were looking for over two runs right up to the closing bell.
Snowboarder Alain was suddenly all smiles, finding what for him were the runs of the day, and we returned to the base via the aspens to skier's left of Shaft, which weren't half bad, either -- certainly far better than the slick manmade on Shaft itself. We had a couple of beers après-ski at the Pig Pen Saloon before they shuffled off to dinner in Park City and I headed home.
