E. Nigma
New member
Solitude: It was.
I headed up to Solitude for a couple of runs over my lunch hour. The place was deserted, but that shouldn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the snow surface -- I expected some crustiness with a temperature inversion taking hold of the Wasatch all week, but surprisingly surfaces remained good, albeit with a sugary topping to the untracked stuff. In true inversion style, it was 31 and hazy in the Valley, and 38 under bright blue skies at the base of Solitude. I was comfortably happy in just long underwear, a turtleneck and a thin shell. You know its warm when I leave my goggles in the car in favor of sunglasses.
Time was short, so I parked at the far west end of the Moonbeam lot for ski-in, ski-out access to and from the car. Up Eagle Express, I traversed east to Vertigo, finding that some of the rock bands still aren't sporting quite adequate cover. I carved perfect cord down Main Street to catch the Sunrise and Summit chairs to the top.
I headed out the highest traverse line into Honeycomb Canyon, going as far as possible to the rock band separating Voltaire and Prince of Wales, where patrol had set up a rope line. There's still an amazing amount of untracked and barely tracked in Honeycomb, despite the fact that it opened for the season on Saturday. I picked my line and dropped in, having wonderful turns all the way to Honeycomb Return, which was an "adventure" as it still lacks sufficient snow to be groomed.
I had seen two other guys at the start of the traverse, but left them behind as I struck out further and further. I passed one other person, who dropped in at the steep uphill at the near side of Voltaire. Other than that, I saw no one else from the time I got off of Summit to the time I reached the Honeycomb Return chair. The liftie had to exit the lift shack to bump the chair for me.
"So, getting lonely back here?" I asked.
"Sorta," he replied. "I get a skier every 20 to 30 minutes."
Solitude, indeed.
Back up the Honeycomb Return chair, another groomer down Sunshine Bowl and Last Run returned me to the truck and my afternoon at work. 4 lift rides, 4,050 verts.
I headed up to Solitude for a couple of runs over my lunch hour. The place was deserted, but that shouldn't surprise me. What did surprise me was the snow surface -- I expected some crustiness with a temperature inversion taking hold of the Wasatch all week, but surprisingly surfaces remained good, albeit with a sugary topping to the untracked stuff. In true inversion style, it was 31 and hazy in the Valley, and 38 under bright blue skies at the base of Solitude. I was comfortably happy in just long underwear, a turtleneck and a thin shell. You know its warm when I leave my goggles in the car in favor of sunglasses.
Time was short, so I parked at the far west end of the Moonbeam lot for ski-in, ski-out access to and from the car. Up Eagle Express, I traversed east to Vertigo, finding that some of the rock bands still aren't sporting quite adequate cover. I carved perfect cord down Main Street to catch the Sunrise and Summit chairs to the top.
I headed out the highest traverse line into Honeycomb Canyon, going as far as possible to the rock band separating Voltaire and Prince of Wales, where patrol had set up a rope line. There's still an amazing amount of untracked and barely tracked in Honeycomb, despite the fact that it opened for the season on Saturday. I picked my line and dropped in, having wonderful turns all the way to Honeycomb Return, which was an "adventure" as it still lacks sufficient snow to be groomed.
I had seen two other guys at the start of the traverse, but left them behind as I struck out further and further. I passed one other person, who dropped in at the steep uphill at the near side of Voltaire. Other than that, I saw no one else from the time I got off of Summit to the time I reached the Honeycomb Return chair. The liftie had to exit the lift shack to bump the chair for me.
"So, getting lonely back here?" I asked.
"Sorta," he replied. "I get a skier every 20 to 30 minutes."
Solitude, indeed.
Back up the Honeycomb Return chair, another groomer down Sunshine Bowl and Last Run returned me to the truck and my afternoon at work. 4 lift rides, 4,050 verts.
