Day 39: A pleasant surprise.
We headed up for a 10 am meeting on the tram plaza, just ahead of a wall of snow moving in from the northwest. About halfway up, visitor Todd from Tampa, who suffered a mild case of HAPE the day before at Alta, asked what altitude we were at.
"Oh, about 6,700, maybe 6,800 feet," I replied. "Why?"
"'Cuz I can feel each and every 500 feet."
Uh oh.
I implored him to let me turn around and return him to the valley, but he was having none of that. Instead, we dropped him off at the Cliff Lodge, where he retired to a comfy leather chair in the lobby while his brother John from Detroit, The Kid and I found a primo parking spot along the Alta Bypass Road, booted up, and slid down to the tram plaza.
Tony Crocker appeared within a few minutes and we hooked up with a bunch of his friends staying at Snowbird for the week. The general consensus was against getting in the lengthy tram line, so our group of 15 or so boarded the Peruvian chair right as the wall of snow moved in. Had it been up to me, we would have merely skied down the canyon to Gadzoom, but alas...for once, it wasn't up to me. In fact, I remarked to The Kid as we rode the chair, visibility dropping rapidly, that I'd never even been on the Peruvian chair before. I guess it was a good thing, for this is that chair's last season, due to be replaced this summer by the high-speed Peruvian quad chairlift that will ascend to just below the summit ridgeline, at the tunnel that will lead through the mountain into Mineral Basin.
By the time we reached the top of the chair, the snow was falling fast and furious. Trying to keep 15 skiers and riders together is like trying to corral a herd of cats. John had switched from his skis at Alta the day before to a snowboard, and was riding quite tentatively. I skied down to Rothman Way, watched the crowd pass, turned around to see John ride down past Rothman way heading back to the base. Oh, well...guess we weren't skiing with Tony's group. The Kid and I followed John back down to the tram plaza.
I'd convinced John to buy a tram ticket, so we might as well brave the tram line, which despite being a full corral wasn't that bad after all. Maybe 20 minutes later, we were stepping into cabin 1 and ascending Hidden Peak.
Of course, given the weather, that was a huge mistake. We stepped out of the cabin on the peak into a full-on blizzard. Visibility was maybe 20 yards at best. Without any trees to add definition, it was a full-fledged whiteout. We skied tentatively down to the top of Little Cloud, then stopped to watch for John. When he was perhaps 10 yards behind us, I motioned for The Kid to start poling down Road to Provo so that John could see where we were going without losing what little momentum he had. No more than 5 second later, I turned around to see...no John.
We looked around the top of Little Cloud, but John was nowhere to be seen. The only logical conclusion was that he had instead zigged when he should have zagged, heading down the Powder Paradise cat road into Mineral Basin. :? In these weather conditions, that was the worst possible place to head, without a tree in sight. Given no option, however, we headed after him.
It was tough to see the edge of the cat track, but that was nothing when we pushed off beyond the groomed into Powder Paradise itself. I knew that there were some small stands of trees along the ropeline below Hilary Step, but getting to them was total white room like I've never before experienced. A pity, for there was still ample untracked that we were traversing through, but it was impossible to figure out where the sky ended and the snow began, even tougher to figure out which way was up and which way was down. At least The Kid had my body in front of him for a reference. At last we reached the trees, but even there it was impossible to make out the snow surface, so while the skiing was good it was still tricky and cautious going.
We eventually found our way to the bottom of the Mineral Basin Express, partially because I knew where it was and partially because we could hear the sound of the drive motor nearby in the whiteout. We waited there for a good 15 minutes, figuring that John would eventually drain out there, but once we concluded that he couldn't have been in Mineral Basin, we rode the chair back to Hidden Peak.
What we learned later, however, was that he was, in fact, in Mineral Basin...of sorts. Apparently, at the top of Little Cloud, right as we had turned around in the whiteout he inadvertantly found the edge of the cat track. Suddenly finding the ground disappearing below him, he tumbled down over the edge about 50 yards into Mineral Basin's steeps. While we were poking around the ridge looking for him, John was no more than 50 yards away. As he was unsure that his landing zone was even part of the ski resort, he opted to struggle for 15 minutes to ascend those 50 yards in deep snow back to the cat track.
By the time The Kid and I had returned to Hidden Peak, the ski patrol had closed Road to Provo in the face of an increasing avalanche hazard. We followed the Little Cloud ropeline in a failed attempt to improve visibility, working our way into the trees at skier's left near the bottom of the bowl, finding a good 6 inches of new untracked that had fallen in such a short time during the morning. Today was a day to stay in the trees, so we worked our way over to Gad 2, perhaps the best low-vis option on the mountain as it offers steep trees from top to bottom, all of it above the slight crust from the end-of-February drizzle event that reached as high as 9,000 feet in places. En route we stopped at the entrance to Black Forest to try to phone John, but I needed his number for Todd. I got Todd's voicemail right before the phone rang with a call from Tony, who somehow lost his group on the very first run down Rothman Way en route to Gadzoom, and was now skiing alone. We made plans to meet for lunch.
We traversed into Black Forest, and I somehow lost The Kid in my search for freshies. Giving up, I enjoyed the lightly tracked before finding him again waiting at the exit. I'm not quite sure how we became separated.
We had no more than arrived at the liftline before something caught my eye off to the right, slowly making its way to Bassackwards: it was a snowboarder in a red jacket, and it was none other than John! We compared notes about the events on the peak before pushing on down ahead.
John and The Kid both wanted to take a break, and John was looking for the easiest route down, so at the curve in Bassackwards I pointed him towards Big Emma to head for the new Creekside Lodge at the base of Gadzoom. I was looking for something with a bit more pizazz, so I headed out the gate into the trees above Baby Thunder, with The Kid in tow.
Here, the crust was noticeable below a few inches of new snow, but still nothing to complain about. Zipping through the tight trees was a joy, which we did with abandon before coming around one tree and finding...Tony!
An odd place to bump into one another, but a positive chance meeting nonetheless. He was with a few of his buds from L.A., and we finished off the trees back to Gadzoom. We figured that we'd give John the short break that he wanted, so we opted for one trip off Gadzoom with the boys before regrouping with John. We opted for the trees between the chair and Bassackwards, which were positively delightful with all of the new snow. Tony's companions headed for a meeting at Mid-Gad, while we sped back down to Creekside to find...no John!
What to do? We called Todd and told him to make his way from the Cliff Lodge over to Snowbird Center to hook up for lunch at the Rendezvous. To get there we had to ride back up Gadzoom, and we traversed high into the untracked above Restaurant Row, yet another high-speed delight through fresh snow. We braved the masses on Big Emma, and headed down Bass Highway to return to Snowbird Center.
Walking through the second-floor corridor, who's sitting there sleeping on a bench? John! Apparently he had taken the shuttle bus from Creekside to Snowbird Center, so we were somehow all reconnected for lunch.
Chance meetings continued, for Liftlines user Acidchrist was sitting at the table next to us with Amy and some out-of-town friends. On the other side of us was our next door neighbor. At lunch we devised a game plan: it was 2 pm, and John would ride groomers off Peruvian and Gadzoom while The Kid and I went to play with Tony on some more challenging stuff.
And challenging stuff is what we found! We skied back to Gadzoom and worked our way back to Gad 2. We skied steep trees between the lift and Bananas before dropping off the skier's right side of Bananas back under the lift. Arriving at mid-Gad, we went out the Carbonate gate, heading for the steep chutes threading the cliff band below the lower half of Gadzoom. I have no idea what these are called, but there are about 4 or 5 entrances, some more negotiable than others. We opted for one that had a 20-foot rope tied to a tree, with knots placed every three feet or so for lowering yourself down over the rocks guarding the entrance. Once clear of the rocks, we threaded the trees to skier's left to avoid the cliff face below, arriving at another chute that started narrow but gradually opened in a triangle to a steep, open apron below. Feeling confident, I let it rock, laying high-speed GS turns through the shin-deep powder and fluffy sluff. Woo-freakin'-hoo!! \
/
We rode Gad 2 again, this time dropping off skier's left of the top shack into stuff that hadn't been skied at all before the snow storms earlier in the week. The Kid and I found honest-to-goodness knee- to thigh-deep untracked by traversing way out left, and Tony found good snow as well on a more direct line.
Looking uphill, in the clearing weather I noticed that the Road to Provo gate had been reopened, promising untracked that had been off-limits for much of the day. We boarded Little Cloud and headed out, where Tony reported true face shots threading the almost-buried cliffs below the "Cliff Area" signs in what I'll call the Rasta Malou trees. No face shots for me, but true thigh-deep nonetheless. The final tally on yesterday's squall line was officially 6 inches, but it sure had blown in much deeper in favored locations.
Tony was ready to lap Little Cloud again, but it was already 3:40 and we had a meeting at the base of Peruvian scheduled with John. The Kid and I had to head down, and Tony opted to follow. We slipped out the gate just downhill of Black Forest, and dipped up and over two rises before finding an incredibly steep treed face below our skis. Tony headed to skier's right for a more open entrance while The Kid and I decided to up the ante through a narrow fluted slot. I jumped in via a hop turn to the left, hoping to check my speed before straightening them out, only to find that the chute was too narrow and both my tips and my tails were stuck in the chute's sidewalls. I managed to free myself and drop onto the treed apron below while The Kid lined up for his shots (see photos below). He handled it about as well as could be expected, and I was proud.
We continued down to the right of the main line into more 45-degree trees that only an Easterner would consider skiable. This, unfortunately, dropped us onto an apron above a drainage that, unbeknownst to me, would eventually lead us to a point below the Bass Highway traverse back to Snowbird Center. We found ourselves back in Carbonate, and dropped back to Big Emma via an easier entrance to skier's left of the rope-lowering chute from earlier in the afternoon. This got us back to Wilbere, another chair I've heretofore never ridden, to get back to Bass Highway while Tony headed in for the day.
The Kid and I skied the tree island to skier's left of Harper's Ferry, then traversed across Harper's Ferry and Harper's Ferry East to a small aspen grove to descend back to Peruvian. Who showed up while we awaited John's arrival? Tony! He changed his mind after deciding that he hadn't had enough.
John showed up, and we all dropped down through the chow back toward the truck parked on the Bypass Road. We picked up Todd at the Cliff, and headed down canyon, all of us fully satisfied...except for Todd.
Todd headed out here for a long ski weekend, and took a total of three runs the entire trip. #-o
We headed up for a 10 am meeting on the tram plaza, just ahead of a wall of snow moving in from the northwest. About halfway up, visitor Todd from Tampa, who suffered a mild case of HAPE the day before at Alta, asked what altitude we were at.
"Oh, about 6,700, maybe 6,800 feet," I replied. "Why?"
"'Cuz I can feel each and every 500 feet."
Uh oh.
I implored him to let me turn around and return him to the valley, but he was having none of that. Instead, we dropped him off at the Cliff Lodge, where he retired to a comfy leather chair in the lobby while his brother John from Detroit, The Kid and I found a primo parking spot along the Alta Bypass Road, booted up, and slid down to the tram plaza.
Tony Crocker appeared within a few minutes and we hooked up with a bunch of his friends staying at Snowbird for the week. The general consensus was against getting in the lengthy tram line, so our group of 15 or so boarded the Peruvian chair right as the wall of snow moved in. Had it been up to me, we would have merely skied down the canyon to Gadzoom, but alas...for once, it wasn't up to me. In fact, I remarked to The Kid as we rode the chair, visibility dropping rapidly, that I'd never even been on the Peruvian chair before. I guess it was a good thing, for this is that chair's last season, due to be replaced this summer by the high-speed Peruvian quad chairlift that will ascend to just below the summit ridgeline, at the tunnel that will lead through the mountain into Mineral Basin.
By the time we reached the top of the chair, the snow was falling fast and furious. Trying to keep 15 skiers and riders together is like trying to corral a herd of cats. John had switched from his skis at Alta the day before to a snowboard, and was riding quite tentatively. I skied down to Rothman Way, watched the crowd pass, turned around to see John ride down past Rothman way heading back to the base. Oh, well...guess we weren't skiing with Tony's group. The Kid and I followed John back down to the tram plaza.
I'd convinced John to buy a tram ticket, so we might as well brave the tram line, which despite being a full corral wasn't that bad after all. Maybe 20 minutes later, we were stepping into cabin 1 and ascending Hidden Peak.
Of course, given the weather, that was a huge mistake. We stepped out of the cabin on the peak into a full-on blizzard. Visibility was maybe 20 yards at best. Without any trees to add definition, it was a full-fledged whiteout. We skied tentatively down to the top of Little Cloud, then stopped to watch for John. When he was perhaps 10 yards behind us, I motioned for The Kid to start poling down Road to Provo so that John could see where we were going without losing what little momentum he had. No more than 5 second later, I turned around to see...no John.
We looked around the top of Little Cloud, but John was nowhere to be seen. The only logical conclusion was that he had instead zigged when he should have zagged, heading down the Powder Paradise cat road into Mineral Basin. :? In these weather conditions, that was the worst possible place to head, without a tree in sight. Given no option, however, we headed after him.
It was tough to see the edge of the cat track, but that was nothing when we pushed off beyond the groomed into Powder Paradise itself. I knew that there were some small stands of trees along the ropeline below Hilary Step, but getting to them was total white room like I've never before experienced. A pity, for there was still ample untracked that we were traversing through, but it was impossible to figure out where the sky ended and the snow began, even tougher to figure out which way was up and which way was down. At least The Kid had my body in front of him for a reference. At last we reached the trees, but even there it was impossible to make out the snow surface, so while the skiing was good it was still tricky and cautious going.
We eventually found our way to the bottom of the Mineral Basin Express, partially because I knew where it was and partially because we could hear the sound of the drive motor nearby in the whiteout. We waited there for a good 15 minutes, figuring that John would eventually drain out there, but once we concluded that he couldn't have been in Mineral Basin, we rode the chair back to Hidden Peak.
What we learned later, however, was that he was, in fact, in Mineral Basin...of sorts. Apparently, at the top of Little Cloud, right as we had turned around in the whiteout he inadvertantly found the edge of the cat track. Suddenly finding the ground disappearing below him, he tumbled down over the edge about 50 yards into Mineral Basin's steeps. While we were poking around the ridge looking for him, John was no more than 50 yards away. As he was unsure that his landing zone was even part of the ski resort, he opted to struggle for 15 minutes to ascend those 50 yards in deep snow back to the cat track.
By the time The Kid and I had returned to Hidden Peak, the ski patrol had closed Road to Provo in the face of an increasing avalanche hazard. We followed the Little Cloud ropeline in a failed attempt to improve visibility, working our way into the trees at skier's left near the bottom of the bowl, finding a good 6 inches of new untracked that had fallen in such a short time during the morning. Today was a day to stay in the trees, so we worked our way over to Gad 2, perhaps the best low-vis option on the mountain as it offers steep trees from top to bottom, all of it above the slight crust from the end-of-February drizzle event that reached as high as 9,000 feet in places. En route we stopped at the entrance to Black Forest to try to phone John, but I needed his number for Todd. I got Todd's voicemail right before the phone rang with a call from Tony, who somehow lost his group on the very first run down Rothman Way en route to Gadzoom, and was now skiing alone. We made plans to meet for lunch.
We traversed into Black Forest, and I somehow lost The Kid in my search for freshies. Giving up, I enjoyed the lightly tracked before finding him again waiting at the exit. I'm not quite sure how we became separated.
We had no more than arrived at the liftline before something caught my eye off to the right, slowly making its way to Bassackwards: it was a snowboarder in a red jacket, and it was none other than John! We compared notes about the events on the peak before pushing on down ahead.
John and The Kid both wanted to take a break, and John was looking for the easiest route down, so at the curve in Bassackwards I pointed him towards Big Emma to head for the new Creekside Lodge at the base of Gadzoom. I was looking for something with a bit more pizazz, so I headed out the gate into the trees above Baby Thunder, with The Kid in tow.
Here, the crust was noticeable below a few inches of new snow, but still nothing to complain about. Zipping through the tight trees was a joy, which we did with abandon before coming around one tree and finding...Tony!
An odd place to bump into one another, but a positive chance meeting nonetheless. He was with a few of his buds from L.A., and we finished off the trees back to Gadzoom. We figured that we'd give John the short break that he wanted, so we opted for one trip off Gadzoom with the boys before regrouping with John. We opted for the trees between the chair and Bassackwards, which were positively delightful with all of the new snow. Tony's companions headed for a meeting at Mid-Gad, while we sped back down to Creekside to find...no John!
What to do? We called Todd and told him to make his way from the Cliff Lodge over to Snowbird Center to hook up for lunch at the Rendezvous. To get there we had to ride back up Gadzoom, and we traversed high into the untracked above Restaurant Row, yet another high-speed delight through fresh snow. We braved the masses on Big Emma, and headed down Bass Highway to return to Snowbird Center.
Walking through the second-floor corridor, who's sitting there sleeping on a bench? John! Apparently he had taken the shuttle bus from Creekside to Snowbird Center, so we were somehow all reconnected for lunch.
Chance meetings continued, for Liftlines user Acidchrist was sitting at the table next to us with Amy and some out-of-town friends. On the other side of us was our next door neighbor. At lunch we devised a game plan: it was 2 pm, and John would ride groomers off Peruvian and Gadzoom while The Kid and I went to play with Tony on some more challenging stuff.
And challenging stuff is what we found! We skied back to Gadzoom and worked our way back to Gad 2. We skied steep trees between the lift and Bananas before dropping off the skier's right side of Bananas back under the lift. Arriving at mid-Gad, we went out the Carbonate gate, heading for the steep chutes threading the cliff band below the lower half of Gadzoom. I have no idea what these are called, but there are about 4 or 5 entrances, some more negotiable than others. We opted for one that had a 20-foot rope tied to a tree, with knots placed every three feet or so for lowering yourself down over the rocks guarding the entrance. Once clear of the rocks, we threaded the trees to skier's left to avoid the cliff face below, arriving at another chute that started narrow but gradually opened in a triangle to a steep, open apron below. Feeling confident, I let it rock, laying high-speed GS turns through the shin-deep powder and fluffy sluff. Woo-freakin'-hoo!! \
/ We rode Gad 2 again, this time dropping off skier's left of the top shack into stuff that hadn't been skied at all before the snow storms earlier in the week. The Kid and I found honest-to-goodness knee- to thigh-deep untracked by traversing way out left, and Tony found good snow as well on a more direct line.
Looking uphill, in the clearing weather I noticed that the Road to Provo gate had been reopened, promising untracked that had been off-limits for much of the day. We boarded Little Cloud and headed out, where Tony reported true face shots threading the almost-buried cliffs below the "Cliff Area" signs in what I'll call the Rasta Malou trees. No face shots for me, but true thigh-deep nonetheless. The final tally on yesterday's squall line was officially 6 inches, but it sure had blown in much deeper in favored locations.
Tony was ready to lap Little Cloud again, but it was already 3:40 and we had a meeting at the base of Peruvian scheduled with John. The Kid and I had to head down, and Tony opted to follow. We slipped out the gate just downhill of Black Forest, and dipped up and over two rises before finding an incredibly steep treed face below our skis. Tony headed to skier's right for a more open entrance while The Kid and I decided to up the ante through a narrow fluted slot. I jumped in via a hop turn to the left, hoping to check my speed before straightening them out, only to find that the chute was too narrow and both my tips and my tails were stuck in the chute's sidewalls. I managed to free myself and drop onto the treed apron below while The Kid lined up for his shots (see photos below). He handled it about as well as could be expected, and I was proud.
We continued down to the right of the main line into more 45-degree trees that only an Easterner would consider skiable. This, unfortunately, dropped us onto an apron above a drainage that, unbeknownst to me, would eventually lead us to a point below the Bass Highway traverse back to Snowbird Center. We found ourselves back in Carbonate, and dropped back to Big Emma via an easier entrance to skier's left of the rope-lowering chute from earlier in the afternoon. This got us back to Wilbere, another chair I've heretofore never ridden, to get back to Bass Highway while Tony headed in for the day.
The Kid and I skied the tree island to skier's left of Harper's Ferry, then traversed across Harper's Ferry and Harper's Ferry East to a small aspen grove to descend back to Peruvian. Who showed up while we awaited John's arrival? Tony! He changed his mind after deciding that he hadn't had enough.
John showed up, and we all dropped down through the chow back toward the truck parked on the Bypass Road. We picked up Todd at the Cliff, and headed down canyon, all of us fully satisfied...except for Todd.
Todd headed out here for a long ski weekend, and took a total of three runs the entire trip. #-o
