With admin back at work I was on my own for the last day of this trip in the rental car. So with chain restrictions on, I squeezed into a parking spot at the mouth of Big Cottonwood about 9AM and joined the considerable holiday crowd waiting for the UTA bus. The first one to pull up was headed to the next stop 1/2 mile down, and about 10-20 of us decided we had better get on. 10 minutes later it was standing room only, so the driver never went to the lower stop. I arrived at Solitude about 10AM.
Reported storm total was 17 inches by the time the storm let up about 12:30PM. This was about as comfortable as can be skiing in snow as there was absolutely no wind or fog. The benign weather undoubtedly contributed to the high quality of the powder. I had commented to admin that the day+ old powder at Powder Mt. Saturday had required more effort than the skier packed spring snow of one of our last runs. This was not the case with Monday's powder, almost effortless by California standards. On the marked runs the main issue was to turn in a big enough pile of new snow to avoid bottoming out on the subsurface.
I first headed to the high speed Eagle quad. The powder had already been chopped in the main runs but still skied well. I had recently learned from admin to look for untracked in brushy areas of moderate pitch, and there were enough of those to keep me on Eagle for 4 runs. Then I moved on to Powderhorn for more lightly chopped powder on its upper bowls and trees skiers left of the chair. Lower down I followed a traverse track which led to an untracked stand of cottonwoods with knee-to-thigh deep snow.
Third time up Powderhorn I headed out the double-diamond gate to ski directly to the Summit chair. Milk Run had good steep powder for about 500 vertical, and you had to pick your way down through confined and partially scraped lines below that. When I first exited Summit the gate to Honeycomb had been opened but not the high traverse to skier's left. After a chopped powder run through Headwall Forest, I found the desired traverse had just opened about 1:30PM on my second ride up Summit.
I was about the 10th person out there, and while the traverse was grunt work and everyone knows about the long run out, it was definitely worth it. I know admin and his jaded local friends ski this stuff all the time, but for about 500 vertical that was the deepest snow I've skied since 1999, absolutely untracked and consistently thigh-to-waist deep. I followed a snowboarder's general line into a bowl with steep trees below. The trees dropped off a bit steeper than I expected but with snow that deep it was no problem letting the powder guide a slow motion turn into the lower section.
I tried a quick run near the new Honeycomb chair. Powder was still good but you had to stay in it because the southfacing subsurface was crunchy. I then returned to Sunrise and Summit for a last shot at the Honeycomb traverse. I went a bit farther out this time, into the general area marked Voltaire on the map. The line I chose this time funneled into a slight gully where the snow must have accumulated more, because this time it was waist deep with face shots.
By the time I reached Honeycomb chair this time, it was not moving and 50 people were waiting for it at 2:45PM, so I knew there was no chance to make it back to the deep untracked. So I continued down to Eagle, took 2 more runs there and 2 on Powderhorn to cap a memorable day. 23,000 verticaL, 13K of very high quality powder. Very comparable to my days last year at Jackson and Snowbird except for the late start.
While the visibility was fine for skiing, it probably wasn't that great for pictures. I took a few, but I'm leaving tomorrow for New Mexico and they may not get posted until next week.
Reported storm total was 17 inches by the time the storm let up about 12:30PM. This was about as comfortable as can be skiing in snow as there was absolutely no wind or fog. The benign weather undoubtedly contributed to the high quality of the powder. I had commented to admin that the day+ old powder at Powder Mt. Saturday had required more effort than the skier packed spring snow of one of our last runs. This was not the case with Monday's powder, almost effortless by California standards. On the marked runs the main issue was to turn in a big enough pile of new snow to avoid bottoming out on the subsurface.
I first headed to the high speed Eagle quad. The powder had already been chopped in the main runs but still skied well. I had recently learned from admin to look for untracked in brushy areas of moderate pitch, and there were enough of those to keep me on Eagle for 4 runs. Then I moved on to Powderhorn for more lightly chopped powder on its upper bowls and trees skiers left of the chair. Lower down I followed a traverse track which led to an untracked stand of cottonwoods with knee-to-thigh deep snow.
Third time up Powderhorn I headed out the double-diamond gate to ski directly to the Summit chair. Milk Run had good steep powder for about 500 vertical, and you had to pick your way down through confined and partially scraped lines below that. When I first exited Summit the gate to Honeycomb had been opened but not the high traverse to skier's left. After a chopped powder run through Headwall Forest, I found the desired traverse had just opened about 1:30PM on my second ride up Summit.
I was about the 10th person out there, and while the traverse was grunt work and everyone knows about the long run out, it was definitely worth it. I know admin and his jaded local friends ski this stuff all the time, but for about 500 vertical that was the deepest snow I've skied since 1999, absolutely untracked and consistently thigh-to-waist deep. I followed a snowboarder's general line into a bowl with steep trees below. The trees dropped off a bit steeper than I expected but with snow that deep it was no problem letting the powder guide a slow motion turn into the lower section.
I tried a quick run near the new Honeycomb chair. Powder was still good but you had to stay in it because the southfacing subsurface was crunchy. I then returned to Sunrise and Summit for a last shot at the Honeycomb traverse. I went a bit farther out this time, into the general area marked Voltaire on the map. The line I chose this time funneled into a slight gully where the snow must have accumulated more, because this time it was waist deep with face shots.
By the time I reached Honeycomb chair this time, it was not moving and 50 people were waiting for it at 2:45PM, so I knew there was no chance to make it back to the deep untracked. So I continued down to Eagle, took 2 more runs there and 2 on Powderhorn to cap a memorable day. 23,000 verticaL, 13K of very high quality powder. Very comparable to my days last year at Jackson and Snowbird except for the late start.
While the visibility was fine for skiing, it probably wasn't that great for pictures. I took a few, but I'm leaving tomorrow for New Mexico and they may not get posted until next week.