Today's first run hurt. We beat ourselves silly in the heavy snow yesterday afternoon, and Marc_C and I sure both felt it on our first run down Upper Silver Fox to Chip's and lower Dalton's Draw. It was a beautiful morning, bright and sunny with a brisk southerly breeze at the summit, but it still wasn't quite up to yesterday's standards as the smooth surfaces of Saturday morning had been pushed around and cut up by Saturday's skier traffic. No matter, though, here it was June 5 and we were skiing top-to-bottom in Peruvian Gulch.
In fact, we never set our butts in a Little Cloud chair at all today. On June 5! Our 11,725 verts were accumulated via 4 tram runs. Our second run was via Great Scott, and it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride redux at the entrance as I struggled to hang on through the bumps after gaining uncomfortable speed dropping in and trying to either stop or turn before meeting the rock rib head-on. Marc_C took the safer -- and saner -- entrance by side stepping over some scrub at far skier's left.
Junior's comments yesterday about High Baldy Triangle rattled around in my brain at this point. If there's anyone who knows where to go and when to go there on this mountain, it's Junior Bounous. He did, after all, lay out most of Snowbird's runs. We were, however, slightly concerned about that line's north-northeast exposure and whether or not it had yet softened sufficiently. We therefore took one more run in the Cirque, this time dropping in one line to skier's left of Jaws whose name is quite frankly unknown to either of us. We were rewarded with perfectly smooth corn that got progressively heavier as we neared the bench below the Cirque. We finished the run with the more technical lower line in the gully to skier's right of Silver Fox, but open water was undermining the snow such that this sliver of snow back to the base won't last beyond today.
By now it was slightly after noon, and it was time for our High Baldy hike. The snow was ready...it just had to be. The hike was reasonably effortless along the ridgeline that separates Peruvian Cirque from Mineral Basin. In fact, after 5 years of living in Utah, it was still Marc_C's first time up this bootpack. A few hundred verts below the top of Mt. Baldy we caught a traverse line that shot across the hill on the mountain's left shoulder, coming out below Triangle Rock at a point where we could drop east into Alta, or west back into Snowbird. We were looking down on the top of Alta's Wildcat Chair well below us. Below us on the Snowbird side, however, lay some 1,500 vertical feet of perfectly pitched, untracked, perfectly softened pure corn.
Woo-hoo! \
/ It's tough to find a "best of," but in some 35 ski seasons this may well be the best spring run that I've ever experienced. It's a run that will fill my brain all through the summer. We left at 1 pm completely satisfied. In fact, if I ended my season now I could do so happily...but next week is another lift-served weekend. :wink:
Lots and lots of photos for you today, it was just so beautiful:
In fact, we never set our butts in a Little Cloud chair at all today. On June 5! Our 11,725 verts were accumulated via 4 tram runs. Our second run was via Great Scott, and it was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride redux at the entrance as I struggled to hang on through the bumps after gaining uncomfortable speed dropping in and trying to either stop or turn before meeting the rock rib head-on. Marc_C took the safer -- and saner -- entrance by side stepping over some scrub at far skier's left.
Junior's comments yesterday about High Baldy Triangle rattled around in my brain at this point. If there's anyone who knows where to go and when to go there on this mountain, it's Junior Bounous. He did, after all, lay out most of Snowbird's runs. We were, however, slightly concerned about that line's north-northeast exposure and whether or not it had yet softened sufficiently. We therefore took one more run in the Cirque, this time dropping in one line to skier's left of Jaws whose name is quite frankly unknown to either of us. We were rewarded with perfectly smooth corn that got progressively heavier as we neared the bench below the Cirque. We finished the run with the more technical lower line in the gully to skier's right of Silver Fox, but open water was undermining the snow such that this sliver of snow back to the base won't last beyond today.
By now it was slightly after noon, and it was time for our High Baldy hike. The snow was ready...it just had to be. The hike was reasonably effortless along the ridgeline that separates Peruvian Cirque from Mineral Basin. In fact, after 5 years of living in Utah, it was still Marc_C's first time up this bootpack. A few hundred verts below the top of Mt. Baldy we caught a traverse line that shot across the hill on the mountain's left shoulder, coming out below Triangle Rock at a point where we could drop east into Alta, or west back into Snowbird. We were looking down on the top of Alta's Wildcat Chair well below us. Below us on the Snowbird side, however, lay some 1,500 vertical feet of perfectly pitched, untracked, perfectly softened pure corn.
Woo-hoo! \
/ It's tough to find a "best of," but in some 35 ski seasons this may well be the best spring run that I've ever experienced. It's a run that will fill my brain all through the summer. We left at 1 pm completely satisfied. In fact, if I ended my season now I could do so happily...but next week is another lift-served weekend. :wink: Lots and lots of photos for you today, it was just so beautiful:
Attachments
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16 snowbird our high baldy line 050605.jpg -
15 marc_c high baldy corn 050605.jpg -
14 snowbird corn corn corn 050605.jpg -
13 snowbird marc_c dropping in 050605.jpg -
13 snowbird beautiful high baldy corn 050605.jpg -
12 snowbird 1500 ft of corn 050605.jpg -
11 snowbird looking at wildcat 050605.jpg -
10 snowbird marc_c high baldy traverse 050605.jpg -
09 snowbird lots of snow chips 050605.jpg -
08 snowbird high baldy hike 050605.jpg -
07 snowbird marc_c hiking high baldy 050605.jpg -
06 snowbird mineral basin 050605.jpg -
05 snowbird tram behind great scott 050605.jpg -
04 snowbird lower mt 050605.jpg -
03 snowbird peruvian gulch 050605.jpg -
02 lcc entrance 050605.jpg -
01 green salt lake valley 050605.jpg
