April 30, 2018

April 2018 Recap: Winter, Spring, and Summer skiing


April had every type of skiing possible, in roughly this order: spring, winter, spring, summer, spring, winter.

I don't have to go as far back in time to write this recap, so I remember the specific days...

March 31 - April 1

We spent Easter weekend skiing groomers at Snowbasin, finally get a little use out of our collective passes. 



Then we didn't ski for almost two weeks because it rained to the tops of the mountains (again). The only way to cover up that kind of ice crust would be like 2+ feet of snow in one shot. We got it :-)

April 13-14

Shake up the snow globe. I think this storm dropped 30+ inches in the upper cottonwoods. We got in some nice storm skiing on Friday afternoon and then Saturday was absolute bluebird powder perfection, the kind where you ski powder all day and your face hurts from the combo of smiling so much and sunburn!














April 15

Amazing how quick things can change this time of year. Saturday was one of the best day of the year, and then everything was bulletproof on Sunday due to all the intense sunshine. We found a few soft turns in Wolverine Cirque and Stupid Chute.


April 17-18

Overproducing midweek storm (14") covered up the sun crust nicely. The long spring days are great when the sun doesn't come out - you can dusk patrol, then turn around and dawn patrol the next morning.







April 21-22

On Saturday we headed up Red Pine and skied some south facing corn laps off the south side of the Pfeifferhorn (very nice). On Sunday we went up White Pine and skied a few off Lake Peak. The Lake Chute was very slushy, but good turns were found on the northern aspects of the peak.

















April 28-29

It was sunny all week but the temps were cool enough for overnight re-freezes. Getting the timing right for corn is tough, however, when you have to go to work. Its easy to ski powder at 6:30am... but you have to wait around for a few more hours for corn to soften up. Anyway by the time we got our Saturday morning the season had changed to summer. On Saturday we had an epic posthole adventure heading up to Mt Superior to ski the SE face, then went across the street and skied groomers at Alta for the rest of the day. Sunday was a bit cooler (back to spring) which made for much, much better climbing and skiing conditions. We skied the Seagull couloir a couple times and added some bonus turns on Wolverine Bowl and inside the (closed) Brighton resort.











This exit to the lake was tighter than it looks


April 30

4-7" of fresh snow skied alright over the groomed runs. It wasn't quite how we closed out April last year, but for 2018, we'll just take any fresh snow we can get!