Glad we came back for day 2 at Snow Basin. We started the day off with a ride up John Paul. The skiing was great, but since most of the terrain was closed still it got chewed up fast. Given the fact that No Name and the Tram weren't running and all the gates to get into the area on the lookers right were closed (Hell's Canyon? or so I'm told), and the fact that there weren't that many people around we headed over to Strawberry for our 2nd lap. Over on the Strawberry side the wind must have been blowing that night because the snow was a little wind buffed. Not bad and no crust but noticeably different. This made sense since winds on Strawberry the day before were howling and there weren't any on the other side of the mountain.
The skiing over by Strawberry was great nonetheless. We were able to find untracked lines one all 4 laps. We decided to head over to no name. On our way back we found that Middle bowl was hardly tracked and as the pic below showed no one was skiing it. Even under the lifts was hardly touched around noon. We found that with just a short 2-5 minute sidestep/hike up we could find completely untracked pitches around 1pm.
After we hammered Middle Bowl we headed over to No Name. By this time (2pm) and given the cooling during the day my toes were frozen and I was beat from non stop powder runs for the last 4+ hours we only made one run on No Name. It was pretty hammered by this time but it looked like the area just beyond the boundary was almost completely untracked (Admin, was that where you shot your video?), but having zero knowledge of the area and not checking the avalanche report for the day we decided not to go out. No Name was tracked but, DEEP. Waist deep in spots and not at all wind affected. And that day only the bottom 1/4 which was bumped and crusty wasn't fun (vs bottom 1/2 the day before). After that run we called it a day and watched the football game in the lodge and headed home.
Only line of the day was the 5 minute wait to board John Paul first thing in the morning. Would have been less except my friend insisted on getting some chemical boot warmers which I refused ](*,).
Line for John Paul at 9am, there was no corral so the line looks much longer than it was.
Line for Strawberry at the same time
View up the Strawberry terrain
More Strawberry terrain.
A short hike around 12:30 or so got us to this area.
Ride up Middle Bowl lift, notice all the empty chairs.
Some good skiing we found in Middle Bowl after 12 noon.
Lift "line" for John Paul around 2pm.
Lift "line" for the tram at 2ish.
A few more pictures and some videos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/iankonowitch/1309Snowbasin?authkey=lR2Los72Xd0&feat=directlink.
NOTE that I haven't really gone through the pics/videos so there's some stuff not worth seeing there still.
The skiing over by Strawberry was great nonetheless. We were able to find untracked lines one all 4 laps. We decided to head over to no name. On our way back we found that Middle bowl was hardly tracked and as the pic below showed no one was skiing it. Even under the lifts was hardly touched around noon. We found that with just a short 2-5 minute sidestep/hike up we could find completely untracked pitches around 1pm.
After we hammered Middle Bowl we headed over to No Name. By this time (2pm) and given the cooling during the day my toes were frozen and I was beat from non stop powder runs for the last 4+ hours we only made one run on No Name. It was pretty hammered by this time but it looked like the area just beyond the boundary was almost completely untracked (Admin, was that where you shot your video?), but having zero knowledge of the area and not checking the avalanche report for the day we decided not to go out. No Name was tracked but, DEEP. Waist deep in spots and not at all wind affected. And that day only the bottom 1/4 which was bumped and crusty wasn't fun (vs bottom 1/2 the day before). After that run we called it a day and watched the football game in the lodge and headed home.
Only line of the day was the 5 minute wait to board John Paul first thing in the morning. Would have been less except my friend insisted on getting some chemical boot warmers which I refused ](*,).
Line for John Paul at 9am, there was no corral so the line looks much longer than it was.
Line for Strawberry at the same time
View up the Strawberry terrain
More Strawberry terrain.
A short hike around 12:30 or so got us to this area.
Ride up Middle Bowl lift, notice all the empty chairs.
Some good skiing we found in Middle Bowl after 12 noon.
Lift "line" for John Paul around 2pm.
Lift "line" for the tram at 2ish.
A few more pictures and some videos are at http://picasaweb.google.com/iankonowitch/1309Snowbasin?authkey=lR2Los72Xd0&feat=directlink.
NOTE that I haven't really gone through the pics/videos so there's some stuff not worth seeing there still.
