The Best Memorial Day Weekend

Looking down Little Cottonwood Canyon from the top of Mt Baldy on May 29th.
I love the contrast between seasons - winter, spring, and summer are all in view.

After skiing 4 days in a row (May 11-14) and writing the last blog post, I only skied twice from May 15-26! We were busy with life stuff, and the weather wasn't working in our favor (lots of thunderstorms). Fortunately it stayed cool (enough) and the snowpack didn't melt too much at higher elevations during this stretch. 

Early in the week it looked like the Memorial Day Weekend weather wasn't going to be great for skiing, but luckily the forecast was totally wrong. We had sunshine every day and took full advantage. Between the time I left work on Friday afternoon and got to work on Tuesday morning, I was able to make 5 more notches in the "ski 100 days" belt. More importantly, we had SO MUCH FUN. It was easily our best Memorial Weekend ever!

The day by day photo rundown...

Friday May 27

Started off the long weekend on the right note by skinning up to the summit of Mt Baldy after work and skiing Little Chute (Andrea's first time skiing that line). She loved it and wanted to do it again on Saturday...

Saturday May 28

With the snow still going all the way down to the road, we knew it was prime time for Suicide Chute, and caught it in excellent conditions. Then we went to Alta and skied Baldy/ Little Chute again!

Suicide Chute is the obvious line that shoots to the left from this vantage point about 1/3rd of the way up Mt Superior.
We both wish there was going to be enough snow to ski this on our wedding morning, but it will be melted out by then. We needed another 200" of snow this winter!

Always awesome to realize Andrea's iPhone is somewhere in Home Depot when you are getting ready to sleep! :-)

Sunday May 29

Back to Alta for the third day in a row, taking full advantage of their "second season." First stop was Baldy/ Main Chute, then we skied another one of the Baldy Chutes that we don't know the name of, and finished with one more off the high traverse.

In between skiing we unpacked and started to put together our new house. As Andrea captured perfectly in this photo, I LOVE THIS PROCESS!!!

Monday May 30

We started the morning by going back to Suicide Chute. Conditions were even better than Saturday - smooth and soft! We had one day left on our Mountain Collective passes, and it was closing day at Snowbird, so that was our next stop - a couple hours of FORMAL lift-served turns!

Tuesday May 31

Solo dawn patrol back up Mt Baldy to ski Main Chute. It was early, and surprisingly the snow got a good freeze overnight. Skier's left of the chute had softened up, but the rest of the descent was combat skiing. Another hour and everything would have been nice and soft, but I had to get to work and couldn't wait around.

I can't think of a better place to start the day