Day 70: More powder, more exploration.
Last week I said that I need to get up to Snowbasin more often. Today we made it happen. Telejon and I rode up together, and met up with Bobby Danger who brought along his friend Paul, who's visiting from New Hampshire and spending one or two months here in Utah.
After a huge breakfast in Earl's Lodge (Telejon had a colossal omelet, while I opted for the strawberry French toast), we headed out. There was no reason to rush -- there was no competition for today's freshies. Eight inches fell overnight from a fast moving cold front that petered out around daybreak, 11 in 48 hours. What fell was incredibly dense, and kept us from hitting bottom.
We headed straight to Strawberry, scoring untracked smack dab under the gondola without even trying very hard. From the gondola we got a good view of an untracked Moonshine Bowl, and headed straight over there.
Getting there, however, was tricky for the top of the mountain was enshrouded in clouds and visibility was tough. And Snowbasin can be a windy hill. Today the gale was in full evidence at the very top of the mountain. We couldn't see a thing on the cat track out to Elk Ridge as the right side of our faces was sandblasted by the southwesterly ahead of tonight's next front. Fortunately the wind abated almost immediately after leaving the ridgeline, and overall it continued to die throughout the rest of the day.
After a couple of runs off Strawberry we worked our way back across the mountain toward John Paul.
By now it was 11:30 a.m. as we boarded the chair. We were surprised to see the Olympic Tram running, but they were only loading cabin #2 as cabin #1 would be hitting the snow in front of the top station if it had any weight in it. In addition they were only loading 8 people per cabin in #2 as the same thing would happen with the usual 12. As a result there was a short line, maybe two or three beer cans long. So we opted for an early lunch at John Paul Lodge to let the line dissipate a bit first. I had my usual cioppino, which is a delightfully spicy soup filled with such delicacies as crab claws and giant green lip mussels. Sure beats a cold hockey puck hamburger and greasy fries!
We proceeded to spend the rest of the day lapping No Name, first out the Tram Gate and staying inbounds, then from the top of the Tram beyond the area boundary.
A word of caution here is appropriate. Don't try this at home, or at least don't try it without someone who really knows where they're going for there are ample places to get cliffed out in No Name beyond the boundary. And above all make sure that you know what you're doing, as there's avalanche potential that was amply obvious in areas today. No Name beyond the boundary gate is not patrolled and not controlled. We had to pick our lines carefully and avoid terrain traps, and more than once our ski cuts triggered small soft slab releases that sent us scurrying in other directions to ski other safer slopes instead. No fuzzy bunnies were harmed in the filming of these photos, however.
For our last run we skied something I've never skied before. We dropped into the top of Hell's Canyon, then traversed around to the top of Cold Water Canyon before returning to the base of the ski area. Remember that word of caution above? Double or triple that for this idea. Numerous folks have died in recent years due to avalanches in both of these drainages. If you screw up and descend Hell's Canyon too far, 5,000 vertical feet later you end up atop an impassable 600-foot cliff above the city of Ogden and you'll be billed for your rescue. It's also all too easy to pass the point of no return and follow Cold Water Canyon all the way to Ogden Canyon, many miles from the ski area. We didn't ski many turns in either of these drainages, but all were top quality.
We started that run at 3 p.m., but didn't make it back to the base of the ski area until 5 p.m. It made for a wonderful end to a wonderful day.
Last week I said that I need to get up to Snowbasin more often. Today we made it happen. Telejon and I rode up together, and met up with Bobby Danger who brought along his friend Paul, who's visiting from New Hampshire and spending one or two months here in Utah.
After a huge breakfast in Earl's Lodge (Telejon had a colossal omelet, while I opted for the strawberry French toast), we headed out. There was no reason to rush -- there was no competition for today's freshies. Eight inches fell overnight from a fast moving cold front that petered out around daybreak, 11 in 48 hours. What fell was incredibly dense, and kept us from hitting bottom.
We headed straight to Strawberry, scoring untracked smack dab under the gondola without even trying very hard. From the gondola we got a good view of an untracked Moonshine Bowl, and headed straight over there.
Getting there, however, was tricky for the top of the mountain was enshrouded in clouds and visibility was tough. And Snowbasin can be a windy hill. Today the gale was in full evidence at the very top of the mountain. We couldn't see a thing on the cat track out to Elk Ridge as the right side of our faces was sandblasted by the southwesterly ahead of tonight's next front. Fortunately the wind abated almost immediately after leaving the ridgeline, and overall it continued to die throughout the rest of the day.
After a couple of runs off Strawberry we worked our way back across the mountain toward John Paul.
By now it was 11:30 a.m. as we boarded the chair. We were surprised to see the Olympic Tram running, but they were only loading cabin #2 as cabin #1 would be hitting the snow in front of the top station if it had any weight in it. In addition they were only loading 8 people per cabin in #2 as the same thing would happen with the usual 12. As a result there was a short line, maybe two or three beer cans long. So we opted for an early lunch at John Paul Lodge to let the line dissipate a bit first. I had my usual cioppino, which is a delightfully spicy soup filled with such delicacies as crab claws and giant green lip mussels. Sure beats a cold hockey puck hamburger and greasy fries!
We proceeded to spend the rest of the day lapping No Name, first out the Tram Gate and staying inbounds, then from the top of the Tram beyond the area boundary.
A word of caution here is appropriate. Don't try this at home, or at least don't try it without someone who really knows where they're going for there are ample places to get cliffed out in No Name beyond the boundary. And above all make sure that you know what you're doing, as there's avalanche potential that was amply obvious in areas today. No Name beyond the boundary gate is not patrolled and not controlled. We had to pick our lines carefully and avoid terrain traps, and more than once our ski cuts triggered small soft slab releases that sent us scurrying in other directions to ski other safer slopes instead. No fuzzy bunnies were harmed in the filming of these photos, however.
For our last run we skied something I've never skied before. We dropped into the top of Hell's Canyon, then traversed around to the top of Cold Water Canyon before returning to the base of the ski area. Remember that word of caution above? Double or triple that for this idea. Numerous folks have died in recent years due to avalanches in both of these drainages. If you screw up and descend Hell's Canyon too far, 5,000 vertical feet later you end up atop an impassable 600-foot cliff above the city of Ogden and you'll be billed for your rescue. It's also all too easy to pass the point of no return and follow Cold Water Canyon all the way to Ogden Canyon, many miles from the ski area. We didn't ski many turns in either of these drainages, but all were top quality.
We started that run at 3 p.m., but didn't make it back to the base of the ski area until 5 p.m. It made for a wonderful end to a wonderful day.
