February 27, 2017

I'm just going to say it - this week was ALL TIME!!!


Wow. It's hard to even know what to say anymore. Another week, another storm that surpassed all expectations. I've thrown around some big remarks about how we are having the best days/weeks/months skiing of our lives, but somehow it keeps getting BETTER. And I'm truly not exaggerating - the guy who just broke the world record for most backcountry skiing in a year said that Thursday was the deepest skiing of his life. If there was ever a credible source, that's it, being that he was on skis for like 330+ days last year!

A storm came in big midweek and dropped 4+ feet of snow in a little over 2 days. We are talking the lighest, blower powder snow you can imagine. Actually lighter and deeper than you can imagine because I've skied a lot of powder days and I had never expereinced anything like this before.

Then the storm backed off, but it stayed really cold, so once the snow settled out a bit, it was downright hero snow over the weekend... capped off with a gorgeous bluebird pow day on Sunday. I skied over 29,000 feet over the weekend because who knows when this is going to happen again?!?! Calling it an Everest Weekend for obvious reasons.

This is a storm!...

When your twitter feed looks like this, its going to be great skiing!...






My favorite...

Thursday February 23

Got up LCC after work in between the road closures (lucky!). We skied 4 laps off Emma Ridge, and maybe made 4 turns. Like nothing we had ever experienced before. Waist deep snow - just point your skis to the road and hope you can carry enough speed. It was downright ridiclious! If you opened your mouth it would fill up with snow!








Friday February 24

Dawn Patrol in Mill D. Still almost too much snow to ski but it had settled out a little bit so you could actually turn. Our fattest skis still felt overmatched. Two Short Swings and then 3 x Tom's Hill. Every turn was a faceshot.














Saturday February 25

Andrea had Bioventures class so we started with another dawn patrol in Mill D - short swing and then 2 x Tom's. She was done at 7:45 and then I headed up Days Fork and skied Day Draw six times. Absolute hero snow. You could just do anything you want - tiny turns, giant turns, bouncy turns... just playful and amazing. Arguably the best skiing of my life. Definitely the biggest - 16.5K!!! And I didn't take a single picture. Andrea took a couple...






Sunday February 26

I challenged Andrea to go for her biggest day ever - she was totally on board after making about two turns and realizing how amazing the snow was. Hero snow again. This time under sunny blue skies. We started from Alta and skied 5 south facing laps (Flagstaff/Emma), then dropped Oingo Boingo into Days, then skied two wide open runs in Main Days, then climbed back out and skied to the car via Toledo Bowl. Just an unreal day... and somehow despite how many people were out, everything was untracked. We ended up skiing about 13K. Andrea is the best!




















Its been snowing hard again today (Monday). Whether this season is better than 2010-2011 might be up for debate, but one thing is for certain - I picked the right winter to be done with competitive running for good and for us to take advantage of the nonstop deep powder days!

February 20, 2017

The Cottonwood Magic Continues!!!

Andrea on a blank canvas in Days Fork - February 20th

Six days without snow and there wasn't much in the forecast for the holiday weekend. We considered heading north to Jackson Hole or south to Moab, but decided to just stick around and see what happened. We even slept in on Saturday and didn't hit the skintrack until 11am. But once again we got a full dose of Cottonwood Magic and three straight days of deep powder skiing. 

The resorts reported 18-22", but I would bet that some spots in Days Fork got more than that. 



Weekend in review...

Saturday February 18

Sleeper Pow Day! Late/casual start from Grizzly Gulch. Skied two laps off the east side of Twin Lakes Pass and the conditions were much better than expected. It seemed like the wind was blowing a lot of snow into that area. Andrea loves Stupid Chute and when we noticed it hadn't been skied yet, that was our next stop. We booted a trench up the side of it, then skied it twice and Tuna Chute once before heading back out via TWP and Patsy trees. Great day and it was storming hard so we knew Sunday was going to be even better...







Sunday February 19

Days Fork delivers again. We started from Alta - the climb up Flagstaff in the wind was somewhat brutal (the first 6 hours of the day were somewhat brutal). But when you ski in a storm, you get the pure blower powder! After dropping into Upper Days we lapped Main Days the rest of the day. Great snow, although sensitive (set off a lot of soft slabs - nothing that could bury you but enough to knock you off your feet... fortunately it was easy to predict what was going to slide: anything steep)...














Monday February 20

Back to Days Fork (Days Draw) starting from BCC this time to avoid the windy LCC/BCC ridgeline. Great snow once again on the NE aspects. And with more calm weather, the uphill was just as enjoyable...


















Unsettled and colder weather in the forecast!!! :-)