Snowbird 2/8/07

[Sharon]

Conditions right now are like that in March. Frozen set up snow in the morning, which then softens into something enjoyable to ski by the afternoon. Our first 3 runs before noon were nothing too exciting, though we did find that the snow on the north facing slopes was still in good shape. So we spent the day skiing the north faces and in the woods.

There were plenty of rocks around, especially entering into the steeper terrain. once below the rocks all was good.

On an foray into the not yet softened Mineral Basin, we found all kinds of death cookies and rocks everywhere. We found the softest south facing slope and proceeded to ski up the moguls, when suddenly one ski was stopped abruptly and I was spun around, though I did not actually wipe out. I thought to myself, whatever that was (never even saw it after I looked up) it's gonna leave a mark.

After riding the lift up, I decided to pop off my ski and see what the damage was. There was a fingernail sized wad of base curled up with a core-skimming ditch under the foot of my ski. I had a guy with a knife cut it off so that I would have less drag. I'm sure the hole is fillable. My edges have been unscathed by the numerous rocks. Just on chunk removed. No biggie. It was worth it.

We enjoyed the north faces in the Peruvian Gulch area. Getting in was sketchy through the rock zone. but once on the north face the snow was light and chalky and skied very well.

We met up with a friend at lunch who was riding a snowboard.

We hit the trees in the Gad Valley. We dragged our snowboarder through all kinds of terrain and wore him out. He was on day 3 of his vacation feeling a bit weak and tired and we are on day 8 and feeling quite good and strong. We started before him and ended after him and we could probably have skied a few more runs if time allowed.

Snowbird is still my favorite...even with the rocks, though I could do without them.

Had a delicious sushi dinner in downtown SLC at Takashi with Marc_C, his wife Karen and a couple of friends from Park City.

Tmrw is our last day, so we'll hit Alta with some of the usual suspects.

Sh

 

[Tony Crocker]

Conditions right now are like that in March.

In the 35 years that Snowbird has been open, March base depths have never been as low as they are now. Thus my Iron Blosam friends have never had to deal with serious coverage issues.

Snowbird is my favorite too, but I would be at Alta with these conditions.

 

[Sharon]

After skiing Alta a day after Snowbird in similar conditions I hafta say that with low snow Snowbird skied much better than Alta. Sine the northern faces had the best snow Snowbird had many more options. The northern faces of Alta were difficult to get to as the High T and other traverses had unavoidable rock crossings. We never even attempted the High T as it appeared sketchy with mandatory rock zones when viewing it from the Wildcat lift.

We found only 3 north facing areas at Alta: Ballroom, Susie's Trees and Wildcat, while there seemed to be many more options at Snowbird as well as more trees. Both the Peruvian and Gad areas offered many more lines that seemed to be more interesting and more continuously steep.

If it wasn't for the low snow, Alta would have had more options but in this case Snowbird ruled.

sh

 

[Tony Crocker]

When LCC skiing is subpar, the rule of thumb is that Alta works better in low coverage but Snowbird works better in terms of preserving snow surfaces with more north exposures. By the time of my March Iron Blosam trips coverage is never much of an issue so Snowbird is generally better if it hasn't snowed recently. It appears that Sharon & company had to deal with both problems. And the point is well taken that the High T is one crucial area where Alta does have coverage issues.