apologies for the length of this one... it was an epic week plus a day. went on a bit of a torrid stretch of skiing recently... 7 days over 8 days. aside from one day, conditions were uniformly awesome. the adventure started on friday, when i joined two ex-colleagues for a day at Sunday River. they'd just gotten a bunch of snow and the conditions were pretty minty. spent most of the time at Aurora and Jordan, but also did the woods at Last Tango a few times.
here are my friends going so fast they ruptured the time/space continuum
it was still snowing when leaving SR and we headed to Sugarloaf, where we'd meet up w/ a larger group of people i used to work with. waze decided to make it one of the more treacherous drives of my life by sending me on a remote route where we only saw 8 deer and a bunch of abandoned houses. pro tip - if you drive a minivan in the winter, put snow tires on it. my wife's car had none, so it was white knuckle both up and down the hills... i didn't want to try to figure out the strategy had we become stuck in the middle of steven king's maine, and it was a real possibility. one of the descents, despite my cautious driving, i went into an uncontrolled slide. luckily the fresh snow that was dumped meant that the snowbank on the right served as a bumper rail used in kids' bowling lanes, so it gently popped us back on the road and i managed to not overcorrect and keep in a straight line. i was never happier to see relatively black pavement.
sugarloaf had gotten more snow than SR, but they too had been in a relative drought and the entrance to brackett basin was gullied out, with some roots and occasional rock ledges that took careful negotation. the rest of the mountain was excellent. not untracked powder, but tons of loose, soft snow. later in the day the moguls got pretty big, and the trails that weren't groomed for sunday got even bigger.
and now it was off to Utah. with the impending storm, we had to make a decision about our tues evening flights, and we decided to change them to monday. well, my kids and i did, as well as one of my friends. the other one on the trip decided to roll the dice, and of course his got canceled so he didn't make it out until very late Wed night. which actually turned out pretty good for Frank.
Walter, my other friend, was trying to deal with getting his skis ready... he bought a new pair of Elan Rip Sticks and wanted to mount AT bindings on them, but the REI location didn't have the right ones in stock. they said they could 2 day ship amd mount at no charge, but the shipping got delayed and Walter had them drop ship to a shop at Park City. while he was dicking around with getting them installed, the kids and i decided to do a half day at PC. word of caution - don't ski Park City/Canyons if you want to save money... the day lift ticket is $142 and the half-day ticket is only $20 cheaper. i guess what else would you expect after Vail bought that resort?
we decided to ski anyway, as it was a gorgeous 50F day and the snow was soft. but then it got weird. the snow got really grabby in spots, and was highly unpredictable. made for some pretty tedious skiing, and after my youngest crashed out of his skis and had a loose ski give him a nice shin bruise, we called it a day. it was also a good warning sign to recheck his DIN settings. the skis were 2 years old and he grew at least 8 inches since then, so he went from a 4 to a 6.5. the next day Walter joined us, and it was pretty nice in the morning. not very cold, overcast, snow still soft. did a nice mogul run down Chimera after lunch, but then the rains started to get heavy and the mountain got put on lightning hold at one point. we were all pretty drenched so called it a day once again.
with Frank in the group, we set out for adventure on Thursday. what had been rain at the lower levels was snow higher up, and we were treated to 5-7" of snow. nice! taking the Orange Bubble up kept our butts warm via heated seats and safe from the precipitation. i guess that $142 is starting to reap dividends.
first run of the day was nice! video link:
http://photos.tinnitus-photography.com/ ... 29-210.mp4
follow the snow to the drift-filled land
Since Park City bought Canyons a few years ago and combined the two resorts via the Quicksilver gondola lift across a canyon, it's become the largest US resort and at 7300 acres, 348 trails, and 41 lifts, you have to take your time exploring it... so we stayed on the Canyons side for that day as well. highlights included Diamond Ridge off Tombstone Lift, the always enjoyable glade runs of The Aspens and The Pines on either side of the ridge that Saddleback Lift traverses, and the 9990 Lift, so called for the elevation at the top. that was pretty steep terrain, but more was yet to reveal itself.
a clip from the 9990 peak
this is a run from the Aspens, probably my favorite ski run ever. there are so many lines to take and as you make your way down the kinda but not too tight aspen trees, it steepens a bit into a gulch that usually has a bunch of launching points. so much fun.
The Aspens
we didn't rent a car due to the expense of having it sit mainly in the driveway, and with five people and full gear, we'd either have needed two vehicles or one ginormous one. plus, the free shuttle bus system gets around PC very well. but we hired a shuttle to head over to Alta for Friday, and we hit it perfect (aside from the poor choice of leaving one of my ski boots underneath someone's ski - wet liner to start the day wasn't exactly my first choice).
to paraphrase Robert Duvall's character in Apocalypse Now, I love the sound of avalanche control charges in the morning. clear day to start, with that light, fluffy powder that utah is renowned for. alta is a big mountain... loads of exposed peaks as scenery, helicopters overhead to ferry skiers to untouched stashes, and a base that sits at over 8000'. the bowls had untouched powder, and the steeps were steep. we hiked up a little bit from the top of the Supreme Lift to access The Catherines, and that was my kids' and my first dose of hella-steep glade skiing. Frank is an excellent skier so he was a good person to have in the group, and we all had a blast.
pictures never really convey the true pitch, but this one was pretty freaking steep
saturday was our last day and we skied PC again... the plan was to catch a shuttle first thing and start at the PC side and make our way across the mountain, but a couple of stragglers got to the bus stop late and we missed it, so we started on the Super Condor side and made our way from there. it had snowed all night and there was a lot of soft white snow delivered for our pleasure.
this was our first run, down Massacre.
http://photos.tinnitus-photography.com/ ... 41-210.mp4
Frank on his way down Molly's, a giant gladed face to the skier's right of McConkey's Bowl.
http://photos.tinnitus-photography.com/ ... 52-210.mp4
after a few runs down Jupiter, i think everyone's legs were waning... we didn't ski Jupiter last time as my youngest wasn't confident, and all the trails are marked double black. but we did three runs down it, one in the bowl and two in the steepest section of trees i've ever been in.
i kinda wish we had hit this first with fresh legs, and hiked up the ridge to get to untracked terrain. next time. we ended up making our way back across the mountain, to the Canyons side. After another run down Grande, a double-black glade run off Tombstone, we huffed it over to Saddleback for one last run through the Aspens. so fun. and as we made our way to the lift, the attendant was unfurling the orange snow gate and closing the lift, right in front of us. we convinced him to let us get last chair, so it was one final run through the trees. couldn't have asked for a better trip.
last run on The Aspens
grand total: 115 runs, 130K total vertical skied. can't wait until the next trip.