Snow Basin, UT 1-2-09

[Admin]

If this is what Admin scored today, I'll give his Alta fixation a pass this time:
http://tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146055

Those shots were taken on Greeley Hill or High Greeley. I think that they hired midgets to pose for those photos. Today's snow was good, but 13" simply doesn't get that deep. Notice, too, that they said it was a "one-lap TR"? By the time I got through the traffic this morning they were likely already heading down canyon. Chances are, too, that they were driving with numb hands and cinder blocks for feet, for they had to queue up well before opening to get those shots today.

I'm waiting for the video to finish compiling to post today's report from Alta.

 

[socal]

TR to come later after I deal with what looks like some frostbite on my toe (we started up John Paul at 9:15 since it opened a little late and didn't stop till 2:30). Crowd avoidance and untracked pow were the key words of the day:

Middle Bowl Chair around Noon, Strawberry was fairly busy, why doesn't anyone ski this area. We lapped this a few times and there was no one here, the lift line looked like this (before we got to it) at noon.

Tram Line at 1pm:

 

[ski-the-face]

those pics from alta are delicious

 

[Marc_C]

those pics from alta are delicious

And basically fake. As Admin mentioned, we only had 13". Short of photoshopping, the only way people were getting that deep was telemarking and going really low on the turns or riding your tails in a squat.
Essentially, I call BS on those photos.

 

[ski-the-face]

maybe the wind piled up the snow right there, you never know

 

[ski-the-face]

your right though, you can see other tracks in the photos and they are not as deep as the photos

 

[Admin]

maybe the wind piled up the snow right there, you never know

Except that unless I missed my guess on where they were taken, we too skied "right there." :lol: They're in bright sunlight, which means it had to be on east-facing, and the only east-facing open at the beginning of the day was Greeley Hill/High Greeley. The only east-facing added during the course of the day (and it took a while to complete control work) was Baldy Shoulder. Other than that, the only way they got sunshine like that before 1 pm was by skiing across the street from the ski area. :lol:

 

[Harvey]

Possible they were taken on a different day?

Seems odd to fake a TR.

 

[Admin]

Seems odd to fake a TR.

This is TGR we're talking about here, where bluffing is both an art and a science.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Harv is too busy skiing to concern himself with details like that.

 

[Marc_C]

Possible they were taken on a different day?

Not according to the comments.

Seems odd to fake a TR.

Not fake in that it didn't happen. Fake in the sense that the photos were cherry-picked to give an impression of a super deep day, despite the reality of only 13". Probably the most accurate photo of that entire set is: http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o132/windriverguy/Alta 08-09/somedude.jpg, where 13" will billow up to your waist when moving fast enough on steep enough terrain. Most every other picture shows either a telemarker sinking low or someone in a compression.

They're good photos, but not exactly an accurate or honest TR.

 

[socal]

I was going through my pictures and remembered something about Snow Basin I thought was a little odd. At the top of Strawberry we went through a gate and traversed across. I'm usually very comforable going through double diamond gates and since I'm not the hucking type I think my ability to avoid cliff areas is pretty good. So there was a traverse to the skier's left and it had enough downhill slope to it that you actually had to work to scrub speed on it. Odd thing was that it literally went into a huge cliff area (below). As you can see, I can't imagine anyone hucking the cliff unless they hiked up above the traverse. There was no warning and all of a sudden I had to make a very quick (and nerve racking) stop to avoid going over the cliffs at the top left side of the pic below (above the big notch at the top). I guess the traverse gave access to the chute in the middle but to me they probably should have had a rope or at least a warning sign since the traverse ran right into it. Haven't had this problem elsewhere, cliffs yes, just not traverses that suddenly end and cliff you out. I was easily able to back out of there but scarry none the less.