Blue and Pink

Blue Skies, Pink Pine Ridge

We haven't skied on the Pink Pine ridge in what feels like forever. Today we headed in that direction and had a great time... the conditions were all over the place - powder, cream cheese, boilerplate, ice luge... but the views were consistently spectacular and the SPRING temperatures Utah is currently experiencing aren't bad either.

Pink Pine is always a fine time

Andrea skinning up the Pink Pine ridge

Despite being wiped out from yesterday's Antelope Island trail races, we still wanted to do a little skiing this weekend, considering the optimal conditions after about 10 straight days of snow in the mountains. We wanted something with a quick approach, so it was back to Pink Pine, one of our favorite spots, for a few laps before the next round of the storm rolled in...


Cottonwood ridge behind me


Andrea was setting the pace today


A perfect spring day


Looking up Little Cottonwood Canyon. Snowbird wants to build a roller-coaster up there. It would ruin this view. Therefore we will not ski at Snowbird and give them any of our money. Disneyland is great, but it doesn't belong in the Central Wasatch.


Obvious avalanche activity (see the fracture line?) made us re-evaluate our original plan, head back down the ridge, and ski some lower-angled terrain...


... we still found some great snow. Here's Andrea dropping in. Judging by the smile on her face, she was enjoying this more than the race yesterday! :-)

We "only" skied 3 laps, because believe it or not we were a bit tired from the races yesterday, but we still managed to farm some excellent powder turns...










Yeah, the snowpack is pretty deep right now! We're going to have excellent skiing until 4th of July (at least we hope so!!!)

Another great day in the mountains. Now, back to training! :-)

President's Day Powder

Andrea, in her new pink bombshell jacket, tearing through some powder off the Pink Pine ridge

Winter has returned in a big way! In the middle of the week, upper LCC received about 18" of snow, and so far this weekend, we've gotten 25-30" more! We forgot how fun powder skiing is!

On Saturday Andrea and I opted for a later start (we've been running a lot this week, more on that in a minute*) and headed up the Pink Pine ridge. We skied 3 awesome laps off the ridge in boot deep snow. We broke out the camera for a few action shots, but it was hard to get great pictures because the snow just didn't let up... by the time we woke up on Sunday morning (6am) the resorts were reporting 15" overnight, and the UAC had issued an avalanche warning. So we busted out a quick run, then headed up BCC to ski our 2nd day of the season at Solitude. The snow was RIDICULOUS! First few laps were knee deep all the way, no exaggeration. The whole day was an absolute blast... it was so good that we didn't even stop to take one single picture!

*Training update: I cranked out 145 miles this week with a long run of 3 hrs 11 mins. Andrea ran ~60 miles with lots of cross training, and 5K PR (on a training run). She also really helped me out by pacing me for 2 hrs of my super-long run on Wednesday. We're going to run a 15K next weekend as one last tune up for Antelope Island, assuming the weather is decent.

I have tomorrow off from work, but Andrea doesn't. Originally, my plan was to shoot for a 15-20,000 foot vertical climbing day, but the avalanche forecast is a bit sketchy right now, so I don't know what I'm doing yet. [Tuesday Update: Due to the avalanche warning, lack of partners, and other circumstances, I ended up not skiing on Monday... instead I managed to log my biggest running mileage day ever (32.7 miles, of which Andrea ran 17.5 with me) and ate 4 bowls of ice cream... I'd call that a successful "day off." The 2-day storm total ended up being nearly 4 feet!]

Now for some pictures from Pink Pine on Saturday:


Busting through a cloud of cold smoke


Andrea is all smiles when the snow is this good


My turn again


And a few more of Andrea... you can tell the snow is really coming down


So this is how good it was on Saturday... add 15-20" to this, and that is how deep the snow was on Sunday. You can use your imagination... it was amazing!


Our GPS route on Saturday. 3 laps off the ridge.


The only picture from Sunday... a screenshot of Solitude telling us that we were in for a bigtime powder day!

I turned on my GPS while we were skiing at Solitude. Kinda fun to see all the laps we did.

Above the inversion

Andrea skinning up the Pink Pine ridgeline, with upper Little Cottonwood Canyon behind her

The Salt Lake valley was under a nasty, polluted inversion last week, so we were anxiously awaiting the weekend, to get up in the mountains and into the clean, fresh air.

On Saturday we started from Alta, intending to make our way to Mt. Wolverine, but visibility was just too low, so we skied 5 laps off Patsy Marley and Twin Lakes Pass. Overnight, about 3-5" of new snow (basically nothing) was reported in the upper canyons. We figured that E/NE aspects with plenty of trees were our best shot at finding soft snow, so on Sunday we headed up the Pink Pine ridgeline. It ended up being an absolutely beautiful day... the sun was shining in full force (which was great because it was otherwise freezing cold out), and we found some areas of at least boot deep powder. Fun skiing, and we got some good action shots...

January 8-9 Photo Gallery

Some of the better pictures below...


Andrea skiing off Twin Lakes Pass


Jake skiing off the east side of Twin Lakes Pass


Skinning up Patsy Marley, for lap #5, in whiteout/fogout conditions


Rime covering everything


Look at that inversion covering the SLC valley in pollution. Yuck.


Stats for Saturday... 4700 feet


Our GPS tracks: Up 1 dark red, down 1 magenta, up 2 yellow, down 2 blue, up 3 dark green, down 3 dark yellow, up 4 white, down 4 red, up 5 cyan, down 5 dark blue.


Sunday Jan 9th: Andrea skins up the Pink Pine ridge. Quite the views on this approach!


Tracks on lap #1


Meadow skipping on some lower angled terrain


We found some steep, untouched powder. I'm having fun here!


Perfect snow for linking some higher speed turns


Another shot off the top of the ridge


Andrea skiing in the open "bowl" area


Andrea skiing, with Red Stack and American Fork Twin Peaks in the background. Picture perfect on our last run of the day.


And the stats... a quick 3600 foot day. Easy breeze.