January 31, 2019

Closing out January

After MLK super week, we picked up another foot of snow from Jan 23-24 and went out for a really nice dusk patrol on Thursday evening...




The following morning the right cable in my TLT7s snapped. At the Spruces Trailhead at 5:30am. Fun. So I got to do the drive of shame back home before 6am. Luckily Dynafit is being awesome and fixing all of our boots, but this did end my consecutive days skiing streak at eight.


Saturday January 26th

Bluebird powder day in George's Bowl...











Sunday January 27

Bluebird powder day in Days Fork (Days Draw)










That was it for January... but another multi-round storm is in the forecast as the calendar turns over to February.

January 23, 2019

MLK Powder Week / Ski Touring "Camp"

Andrea is in there, somewhere.

That was a long holiday weekend for the ages. Six feet of snow in the upper Cottonwoods over a series of storms.

Our buddy Matt booked flights last month to come out for some ski touring - from 1/16 to 1/22. You can see on the snowfall graph below that his timing could be best described as "ideal". We ended up just calling the vacation "Krong Ski Touring Camp." Ski-Eat-Sleep-Repeat.


Thursday 1/17

Matt got in at midnight but we still got up at 5am for a dawn patrol. The wind had blown a lot of snow around but it was a good chance for Matt to get his touring gear dialed in. The big storm was moving in...



Friday 1/18

Our biggest vertical day of the year so far and Matt's biggest day ever. Not too shabby. We hammered laps in Mill D all day. When the avalanche danger is elevated, its great to have places like this to enjoy.
















Saturday 1/19

Andrea and I went back to Mill D, fearing the wind and lower visibility at higher elevations while Matt went to Snowbird. It turned out to be a great choice and we skied creamy untracked laps all day. Second biggest day of the year.





Sunday 1/20

A break in the storms allowed us to get up to LCC for some laps on the Emma Ridge, West Bowl, and Michigan City. The snow was consolidated but smooth and fast. Third biggest day of the year (trend developing!). Great fun was had once again, and another (BIGGER) storm was on the way...

















Monday 1/21

This one was just bonkers. The Cottonwoods were madness (even early in the morning) and I feared we might get stuck up there (which turned out to be true as LCC went full interlodge during the middle of the day and avalanches were hitting the road). I was able to get my jeep up to the Porter Fork trailhead (white knuckle driving). It snowed so much, and the skiing was SO GREAT. Pictures and words just don't do it justice. If you've experienced one of these Utah powder days, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't... sorry.





















Tuesday 1/22

With the storm cleared out and the big full(ish) moon on display, we did one of our favorite things in the entire world: aspen slalom by moonlight and headlamp in untracked powder.



Wednesday 1/23

At this point MLK Weekend has turned into MLK Week. I'm not sure I have even skied 7 consecutive days before. Work or running have historically gotten in the way. Not this year! And I don't think the streak is stopping at 7 days with another small storm moving in today. Anyways... Matt left yesterday and Andrea needed a break, so I skied solo this morning in the moonlight, and didn't stop to take any photos.

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I hate to use the word epic, but that was an epic week. At one point in there Andrea skied about 33,000 feet over 4 days. Not bad for still being periodically in a stress fracture boot. And Matt came up from sea level with only one day of skiing this year under his belt... and his second day out with us he climbed over 9,000 feet. If you are going to take friends with you on a powder day... these are the people you want on the skintrack :-)