I skied 6 days straight on my trip to Utah. They had just had 4 feet of snow, and another foot a few days later. In the old (40 pounds heavier) days I'd have had to take off a day or two, shorten things up and generally dog it for the second half of the week.
But now ... so much more stamina, ski til 4, jumps, deep snow, steeps - it's all fun and good. Hey, it's still strenuous. I'm still tired and sore; but I'm able to keep it up and enjoy that which gives me bliss so much longer and more. More memories to keep me going in the summer. More runs to get me better. Upward spiral of goodness! So for me ... P90x == more good times.
Summary:
Monday: flew in. Plane late thanks to the last part of the storm. Headed up to Deer Valley in Park City for a lovely lunch and hit the slopes for free using our Quickstart passes. By the way, don't let anyone tell you Deer has no steeps untracked or powder. Take them to Ontario Bowl. Here's a picture in there the day we arrived:
The snow was great ... although they had a lower layer of rain crust. So at lower altitudes and in the deeper layers it was a little dicey crust. But this is compared with the usual godlike dry powder we've come to expect in Utah. It was still pretty awesome!
Tuesday: Had to hit Alta. This is the church of skiing for me. I love the place. They get so much snow and I figured I better head there ASAP apres-storm to enjoy some remnants of untracked and chowdah before the masses ripped it up. Only slight issue was the cold. Locals kind of gave us the scare tactics on the cold, turns out it was sunny, light winds and about 0 to -5 at the summit. Fortunately we're New Englanders and can deal with that quite nicely. Even got sweaty a few times. Turns out some great runs and the snow was preserved dry and fluffy thanks to the weather. Greely on the Backside was great. Here's a picture of me (in black) and my buddy Dick in red near the bottom of that run.
As usual Wildcat held some of the nicer snow also, did the HighT and attempt to get to Rustler ... although we only made it to Lone Pine actually. It gets a little sketchy out there! (I'd say they could use more snow but that's a stretch, well of course they could always use more snow ;).
Superior looked grand all decked in white that day
Wednesday: Powder Mountain. First time there and a few words sum it up: Limitless untracked bottomless. Like all day. Got another foot overnight and through the day on top of 4 feet of storm snow which hadn't really been skied. It was awesome. Got a lot of video I will try and post, but for now - suffice to say I'll be back (and we did already, returning on Saturday). From green to double black everything was powder there, all 7000 acres. We scratched the surface (about all we could scratch given the snow) but there is a lot there. Worth the hour drive from SLC.
Thursday: Solitude. Bluebird, mid 20s. Honeycomb Canyon. More fresh and untracked. Another day in paradise! Tough one after Wednesday's ridiculousity at Powmow but not too tough to take advantage of many nice lines and undertracked snow. This place is yet another hidden gem, a bit smaller and underappreciated. Here's a nice shot of Honeycomb's majesty, we were in there most of the day.
Again, a ton of video, will add in a subsequent post.
Friday: Snowbird - got to ski Mineral basin first time. More goodness because it was closed most of the week. Still some great snow in the Gad area, also in Mineral. Here's a pic of us in Little CLoud.
Us in little cloud bowl:
Mineral's Bookends traverse - you don't want to fall here, there's a 30 foot rock face and more badness if you do. It's steeper than it looks thanks to a strange camera angle. But the snow on the other side - magnifique!
Saturday (Final ski day): Powmow again. Dickie got to try some Scott Missions. Good times, tried out Paradise lift and Powder Country and luckily the bus was running this time! Will post some video later.
Great times, and at 6 days in a row, by far, the most skiing I've done yet!
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