Day 71: My redemption.
I'll admit it, I eff'd up yesterday. I woke up at 6:45 a.m. Saturday morning and checked the weather, noting that it was snowing at the summit of Snowbird with near-zero visibility and appearing on the web cams to be raining at the base. Snowbird was reporting 2" of new, not enough to make me want to feel like a drowned rat. I chose to stay home.
So you can imagine my regret when mbaydala posted this photo to Facebook, indicating that 8-10" of new snow had racked up during the day at higher elevations:
I was kicking myself for most of the day yesterday, so I was rather pleased to get out of bed this morning and check the weather radar, just to see this:
I headed up the canyon on time as cars coming down were carrying several inches of new snow. The rain turned to snow at the top of Tanner's Flat, around 7,200'. Some slush began to appear on the warm asphalt at Snowbird Entry 1, and by the time I got to Hellgate the road was white with several inches of new snow and only a handful of tracks from vehicles that had passed before me. UDOT has apparently stopped plowing the road for the season.
We dropped a couple of cars at the closed Alta Ski Area's Wildcat parking lot and made it back down to Snowbird in time for first tram at 8 a.m., sharing the line with many familiar faces including Greg Blessing, Chris from Ski Utah, Blake the Monoskier, Guru Dave and many more. This time of year draws out only the die-hards, by definition some of Wasatch skiing's more "colorful" personalities -- Bobby Danger, AmyZ and yours truly included.
Bobby, Amy and I were the first of the day to head out the Mid-Cirque Traverse. Saturday's snowfall had set up firm but smooth overnight, with several inches of dense new snow on top of it, so the Shot 1 Route 5 ropeline was absolutely dreamy, or at least it would have been if I'd been able to see anything. It was skiing by braille, but as long as you avoided the roller balls to our right that were the size of microwave ovens it was fine.
Fine, at least, until we ventured further down Chip's. Thanks to warmer temperatures that had wetted the lower mountain snowpack on Saturday afternoon, followed by the overnight refreeze, the base was getting firmer as we passed Middle Men's Downhill. Once got to Phone 3 the groomer track headed down Rothman's as we descended Chip's Face, which was a tremendous mistake. Saturday's tracks had frozen solid overnight, and the chunks were big enough and hard enough to toss you right off your line. My thighs just weren't ready for that. Snowbird, you could've at least run a cat down Chip's Face and back up! Just two cat widths would have made a remarkable difference. I know it's considered out-of-area terrain right now, but so is a lot of what you groomed anyway.
The trick, therefore, was to stay up high today, and we found money runs on Chamonix 1.
Still smooth underneath from Saturday, and topped with several inches of new snow overnight it was absolutely divine -- the same as Shot 1 Route 5 except that I could actually see where I was going and what I was skiing. That begged to be repeated.
By 10 a.m., however, it was time to head for more smooth snow at Alta before everything turned to mush. The gate below the rocks on skier's left/looker's right in the photo above of Chamonix 1 was closed, apparently due to SSP's concern about snow coming down the other Chamonix Chutes, so instead of being able to traverse to within mere feet of Sugarloaf Pass we had to instead ski to the bottom of Chamonix 1 and then begin climbing from there. Bobby and Amy skated, poled and herring-boned to beneath the closed Baldy Express lift to as high as they could get before clicking out and booting the rest of the way. I donned skins as soon as I hit the flats at the bottom of the Chamonix Chutes.
We paused to rest at the pass before pushing off down the EBT, as cloud banks pushed through on a stiff but steady northerly breeze, punctuated by sunny moments.
A splitboarder was stripping skins as we arrived at Germania Pass, and there was a steady flow of folks skinning up Collins Gulch behind him. We descended through smooth untracked snow via Ballroom/Four Sisters/Strawberry/Bearpaw/Collins Face.
By now it was 11 a.m., and the snow was absolutely perfect as far down as the Collins Angle Station. Below there, however, the snow had already turned into absolute paste, and it was hard to even glide back to the base of Collins without ripping knee ligaments in the process. Standing in the Wildcat lot at 11:15 I called it a day, and by the time we got back to Snowbird Bobby and Amy did, too.
I'll admit it, I eff'd up yesterday. I woke up at 6:45 a.m. Saturday morning and checked the weather, noting that it was snowing at the summit of Snowbird with near-zero visibility and appearing on the web cams to be raining at the base. Snowbird was reporting 2" of new, not enough to make me want to feel like a drowned rat. I chose to stay home.
So you can imagine my regret when mbaydala posted this photo to Facebook, indicating that 8-10" of new snow had racked up during the day at higher elevations:
I was kicking myself for most of the day yesterday, so I was rather pleased to get out of bed this morning and check the weather radar, just to see this:
I headed up the canyon on time as cars coming down were carrying several inches of new snow. The rain turned to snow at the top of Tanner's Flat, around 7,200'. Some slush began to appear on the warm asphalt at Snowbird Entry 1, and by the time I got to Hellgate the road was white with several inches of new snow and only a handful of tracks from vehicles that had passed before me. UDOT has apparently stopped plowing the road for the season.
We dropped a couple of cars at the closed Alta Ski Area's Wildcat parking lot and made it back down to Snowbird in time for first tram at 8 a.m., sharing the line with many familiar faces including Greg Blessing, Chris from Ski Utah, Blake the Monoskier, Guru Dave and many more. This time of year draws out only the die-hards, by definition some of Wasatch skiing's more "colorful" personalities -- Bobby Danger, AmyZ and yours truly included.
Bobby, Amy and I were the first of the day to head out the Mid-Cirque Traverse. Saturday's snowfall had set up firm but smooth overnight, with several inches of dense new snow on top of it, so the Shot 1 Route 5 ropeline was absolutely dreamy, or at least it would have been if I'd been able to see anything. It was skiing by braille, but as long as you avoided the roller balls to our right that were the size of microwave ovens it was fine.
Fine, at least, until we ventured further down Chip's. Thanks to warmer temperatures that had wetted the lower mountain snowpack on Saturday afternoon, followed by the overnight refreeze, the base was getting firmer as we passed Middle Men's Downhill. Once got to Phone 3 the groomer track headed down Rothman's as we descended Chip's Face, which was a tremendous mistake. Saturday's tracks had frozen solid overnight, and the chunks were big enough and hard enough to toss you right off your line. My thighs just weren't ready for that. Snowbird, you could've at least run a cat down Chip's Face and back up! Just two cat widths would have made a remarkable difference. I know it's considered out-of-area terrain right now, but so is a lot of what you groomed anyway.
The trick, therefore, was to stay up high today, and we found money runs on Chamonix 1.
Still smooth underneath from Saturday, and topped with several inches of new snow overnight it was absolutely divine -- the same as Shot 1 Route 5 except that I could actually see where I was going and what I was skiing. That begged to be repeated.
By 10 a.m., however, it was time to head for more smooth snow at Alta before everything turned to mush. The gate below the rocks on skier's left/looker's right in the photo above of Chamonix 1 was closed, apparently due to SSP's concern about snow coming down the other Chamonix Chutes, so instead of being able to traverse to within mere feet of Sugarloaf Pass we had to instead ski to the bottom of Chamonix 1 and then begin climbing from there. Bobby and Amy skated, poled and herring-boned to beneath the closed Baldy Express lift to as high as they could get before clicking out and booting the rest of the way. I donned skins as soon as I hit the flats at the bottom of the Chamonix Chutes.
We paused to rest at the pass before pushing off down the EBT, as cloud banks pushed through on a stiff but steady northerly breeze, punctuated by sunny moments.
A splitboarder was stripping skins as we arrived at Germania Pass, and there was a steady flow of folks skinning up Collins Gulch behind him. We descended through smooth untracked snow via Ballroom/Four Sisters/Strawberry/Bearpaw/Collins Face.
By now it was 11 a.m., and the snow was absolutely perfect as far down as the Collins Angle Station. Below there, however, the snow had already turned into absolute paste, and it was hard to even glide back to the base of Collins without ripping knee ligaments in the process. Standing in the Wildcat lot at 11:15 I called it a day, and by the time we got back to Snowbird Bobby and Amy did, too.
