Last Call for Wasatch Skiing and another Alta Wedding

Ski season in the Wasatch is just about over. I skied Main Chute at Alta on Saturday (smooth moguls) and surprisingly you could make it almost all the way to the main parking lot (with a short portage by the Collins angle station). That might be the last day of the season which is OK by me at this point. Heading north to Wyoming would present some opportunities to extend things for a few more weeks, but with a lot of travel slated for July, I'm not sure we'll be able to swing it.

Over Memorial Day weekend we headed back east to visit my family.

Kayaking the South Branch of the Potomac River...

Hiking on the AT...

A couple runs on the C&O Canal...

June 2 - Amiee/Fritz Wedding day hike to Hidden Peak (I was the only one smart enough to bring skis)...

The best place for weddings, and that is not even up for debate...

Summer is here, gotta stay cool...

Alta Postseason

Alta closed last Sunday so we did a few postseason tours there as usual this week. A late week storm brought some new snow and it ended up being a pretty darn good weekend of skiing!

Wednesday May 9

Up to Alta after work for a couple laps in shorts. Skied the moguls down High Rustler at 8pm which was fun.

Saturday May 12

We got about 4-5" of very dense snow, but hey - that's much better than the furnace just turning on and melting everything. Above the Collins angle station the skiing was smooth and fun.

Fairly foggy at times...

Better turns than expected...

Sunday May 13

Colder overnight and a couple more inches of drier snow, coupled with sunny skies, made us very happy this morning. We skied some of the Baldy Chutes (Main and Little) in really good conditions and did a couple more laps from the Wildcat and Collins lift.

After skiing Main Chute and starting our skin back up, we saw a skier trigger a good sized avalanche off the Baldy shoulder which ran about 1000 feet and over the lower cliffs. Luckily he/she was able to get out of it above the cliff band. 

We finished off the day by heading a mile down the road and skied some afternoon slush groomers at Snowbird for the last couple hours of their closing day. Squeezing whatever we can out of the mountain collective passes.

The skiing in Little Chute was the best of the day...

Pipeline looking good. Hopefully the runnel holds off from forming until after next weekend!

Winter Winds Down

Sunrise on May 3rd from Twin Lakes Pass

Thursday May 3

About 6" of fresh snow (probably the last new snow) to we get out early to take advantage. The skiing off Patsy Marley and Twin Lakes Pass was awesome - powder over a really smooth base. It was tough skiing to the car to get to work knowing those would likely be the last powder turns for a while.

Saturday May 5

Andrea was down in the desert for a few days so I put together an ambitious plan for Saturday morning which immediately was nixed when I overslept my alarm by about an hour. Doh! Timing is everything in the spring.

I headed up Red Pine, which had plenty of bare spots on the trail. After skiing a couple runs in upper Red Pine, I climbed up the west side of Lake Peak, skied off its North face (best run of the day) and then out White Pine Canyon.

Sunday May 6

The overnight low temps weren't even close to freezing, so I opted to ski at Alta for their closing day instead of backcountry touring. I even slept in and went for a run before skiing, which typically means the season is starting to wind down. I had low expectations but it ended up being one of the better lift-served spring ski days I can remember. The snow was a little slushy but supportable and smooth - all the runs off the high traverse were great. Randonly ran into and ended up skiing with Professor Powder and his son during the morning, which was great.

Superior is melting out. South ridge climbing season will start before you know it.

The Collins plot is already down to 80" and it doesn't seem like we'll get a good freeze all week, so we're going to lose the snowpack fast.

I'm hoping to I will (no matter what) get in a few more weekends of Wasatch turns.

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!