Day 90: Get it, and get it early.
Remember this from yesterday?
We got it today:
Snowbird Ski Patrol yesterday left huge swaths of the mountain closed, including anything out Road to Provo and anything beyond Hilary Step in Mineral Basin. My hope for today was that those areas would open for more pool table-smooth skiing, otherwise things might be a bit tooth rattling this morning.
I knew that it would be a quiet day when I drove up the Bypass Road at 7:50 a.m. to find only five cars already parked there, no Bobby Danger to be found. I went down to Peruvian and got in line for the third chair of the day. They opened late, around 8:15 a.m. It was only after I sat in the chair and the chair gripped the moving cable that I spotted Bobby at the end of the line. We exchanged shouts and I agreed to await his arrival at the top. I shared the chair with a spicy 75-year-old, whose passion at that age for skiing and all things snow was truly inspiring.
It only took three or four minutes for the pre-opening line to clear out and for Bobby to arrive. We walked through the tunnel and into Mineral Basin. Bobby struck out hard left to Chamonix I to see if the gate to the Secret Traverse was open. I was content to stick to the groomed Lupine Loop for a warmup. Bobby declared the upper half not quite ready for prime time.
So we loaded MBE and talked about heading over to Alta once we reached the summit, but upon seeing Road to Provo open we knew where we were headed.
We were truly the first to cross into Pipeline Bowl. It was supportable, you'd only shave off the top half inch with each turn. Having remained completely untracked it was absolutely smooth as could be. We continued across the rollover into the Rastas to produce the photo above. It's difficult to see in the flat light but our tracks are nonetheless clearly visible.
The Bookends and Sunday Cliffs remained closed, but there was no such incentive to ski there today. While it looked perfect yesterday the entire Sunday Cliffs area today was one giant wet avalanche.
It took a while for the others to make their way out Road to Provo and make our discovery, so we just kept lapping variations on that theme for a while, using Little Cloud for uplift.
I settled in on the Bass Benches, which lacked the avalanche debris of Whoopsies or the now accumulating tracks of the Rastas. And I just kept lapping them, farming my own turns on each subsequent run. Delightful!
Bobby still had Backside at Alta on his mind. I wanted to go as well, but without a car spotted up there it would've meant a real schlep once you got to the base of Albion Basin. So I agreed to head up there in the car to pick him up. From the top of Little Cloud he skied down to the MBE as I headed out for another helping of the Bass Benches.
9:40 a.m. precisely, however, was the witching hour. My last run through there of nearly a half dozen had been perfect. Now, however, even with a light touch I was starting to punch through. The off-piste was done for the day.
So I headed down Powder Paradise, back up MBE and down Chip's to Blackjack to return to the car and go retrieve Bobby. A few more days of cooking is required for the corn to set up properly, but we've now got another system moving in. Like usual it will start out with a high snow line that will gradually lower throughout the system's lifespan. In fact on my last run the clouds were spitting a little graupel on the upper half of the mountain and a couple of rain drops down below.
I was five minutes ahead of Bobby so I stopped to get a couple of photos at Alta, closed now for three weeks.
Eventually Bobby appeared shuffling his way along the rope tow.
Remember this from yesterday?
We got it today:
Snowbird Ski Patrol yesterday left huge swaths of the mountain closed, including anything out Road to Provo and anything beyond Hilary Step in Mineral Basin. My hope for today was that those areas would open for more pool table-smooth skiing, otherwise things might be a bit tooth rattling this morning.
I knew that it would be a quiet day when I drove up the Bypass Road at 7:50 a.m. to find only five cars already parked there, no Bobby Danger to be found. I went down to Peruvian and got in line for the third chair of the day. They opened late, around 8:15 a.m. It was only after I sat in the chair and the chair gripped the moving cable that I spotted Bobby at the end of the line. We exchanged shouts and I agreed to await his arrival at the top. I shared the chair with a spicy 75-year-old, whose passion at that age for skiing and all things snow was truly inspiring.
It only took three or four minutes for the pre-opening line to clear out and for Bobby to arrive. We walked through the tunnel and into Mineral Basin. Bobby struck out hard left to Chamonix I to see if the gate to the Secret Traverse was open. I was content to stick to the groomed Lupine Loop for a warmup. Bobby declared the upper half not quite ready for prime time.
So we loaded MBE and talked about heading over to Alta once we reached the summit, but upon seeing Road to Provo open we knew where we were headed.
We were truly the first to cross into Pipeline Bowl. It was supportable, you'd only shave off the top half inch with each turn. Having remained completely untracked it was absolutely smooth as could be. We continued across the rollover into the Rastas to produce the photo above. It's difficult to see in the flat light but our tracks are nonetheless clearly visible.
The Bookends and Sunday Cliffs remained closed, but there was no such incentive to ski there today. While it looked perfect yesterday the entire Sunday Cliffs area today was one giant wet avalanche.
It took a while for the others to make their way out Road to Provo and make our discovery, so we just kept lapping variations on that theme for a while, using Little Cloud for uplift.
I settled in on the Bass Benches, which lacked the avalanche debris of Whoopsies or the now accumulating tracks of the Rastas. And I just kept lapping them, farming my own turns on each subsequent run. Delightful!
Bobby still had Backside at Alta on his mind. I wanted to go as well, but without a car spotted up there it would've meant a real schlep once you got to the base of Albion Basin. So I agreed to head up there in the car to pick him up. From the top of Little Cloud he skied down to the MBE as I headed out for another helping of the Bass Benches.
9:40 a.m. precisely, however, was the witching hour. My last run through there of nearly a half dozen had been perfect. Now, however, even with a light touch I was starting to punch through. The off-piste was done for the day.
So I headed down Powder Paradise, back up MBE and down Chip's to Blackjack to return to the car and go retrieve Bobby. A few more days of cooking is required for the corn to set up properly, but we've now got another system moving in. Like usual it will start out with a high snow line that will gradually lower throughout the system's lifespan. In fact on my last run the clouds were spitting a little graupel on the upper half of the mountain and a couple of rain drops down below.
I was five minutes ahead of Bobby so I stopped to get a couple of photos at Alta, closed now for three weeks.
Eventually Bobby appeared shuffling his way along the rope tow.
