The Best Memorial Day Weekend

Looking down Little Cottonwood Canyon from the top of Mt Baldy on May 29th.
I love the contrast between seasons - winter, spring, and summer are all in view.

After skiing 4 days in a row (May 11-14) and writing the last blog post, I only skied twice from May 15-26! We were busy with life stuff, and the weather wasn't working in our favor (lots of thunderstorms). Fortunately it stayed cool (enough) and the snowpack didn't melt too much at higher elevations during this stretch. 

Early in the week it looked like the Memorial Day Weekend weather wasn't going to be great for skiing, but luckily the forecast was totally wrong. We had sunshine every day and took full advantage. Between the time I left work on Friday afternoon and got to work on Tuesday morning, I was able to make 5 more notches in the "ski 100 days" belt. More importantly, we had SO MUCH FUN. It was easily our best Memorial Weekend ever!

The day by day photo rundown...

Friday May 27

Started off the long weekend on the right note by skinning up to the summit of Mt Baldy after work and skiing Little Chute (Andrea's first time skiing that line). She loved it and wanted to do it again on Saturday...

Saturday May 28

With the snow still going all the way down to the road, we knew it was prime time for Suicide Chute, and caught it in excellent conditions. Then we went to Alta and skied Baldy/ Little Chute again!

Suicide Chute is the obvious line that shoots to the left from this vantage point about 1/3rd of the way up Mt Superior.
We both wish there was going to be enough snow to ski this on our wedding morning, but it will be melted out by then. We needed another 200" of snow this winter!

Always awesome to realize Andrea's iPhone is somewhere in Home Depot when you are getting ready to sleep! :-)

Sunday May 29

Back to Alta for the third day in a row, taking full advantage of their "second season." First stop was Baldy/ Main Chute, then we skied another one of the Baldy Chutes that we don't know the name of, and finished with one more off the high traverse.

In between skiing we unpacked and started to put together our new house. As Andrea captured perfectly in this photo, I LOVE THIS PROCESS!!!

Monday May 30

We started the morning by going back to Suicide Chute. Conditions were even better than Saturday - smooth and soft! We had one day left on our Mountain Collective passes, and it was closing day at Snowbird, so that was our next stop - a couple hours of FORMAL lift-served turns!

Tuesday May 31

Solo dawn patrol back up Mt Baldy to ski Main Chute. It was early, and surprisingly the snow got a good freeze overnight. Skier's left of the chute had softened up, but the rest of the descent was combat skiing. Another hour and everything would have been nice and soft, but I had to get to work and couldn't wait around.

I can't think of a better place to start the day

Catching up, Haven't given up!

I'm weeks behind on the blog. The trip to Aspen was my last post, but we didn't give up on ski season even though summer has been making some hard pushes over the past few weeks. 

A few days after getting back from Aspen I caught one of the best powder days of the entire season - skiing the trees at (closed for the season) Alta ski area. Since then we've mainly been skiing at Alta... still getting out a couple times per week. I'm currently at 90 days for the season and the mid-mountain snow depth at Alta-Collins is currently sitting at 91 inches... so with a little luck I might try to get in 100 days. We'll see if that happens - life is busy right now to say the least!

Some photos from the past couple weeks...

I’m talking about a little place called Aspen

Andrea is stoked after skiing the north face of Castle Peak!

We bought Mountain Collective passes for the '15-16 season, figuring that if we used the 3 local days at Alta/Snowbird and then made long weekend trips to the other destinations within driving distance, it was a killer deal and good excuse to visit some new places and ski outside of Utah.

In January we headed up to Sun Valley (loved it!) and in March made a trip to Jackson Hole (even more awesome!). There was only once place left within a reasonable drive and with the days getting longer and warmer, we were running out of time to head East on I-70 to Colorado.

The destination?

Some place warm, a place where the beer flows like wine, where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little place called Aspen.

We tried to go to Aspen while all four of their ski areas were still open over the first couple weekends of April, but it kept snowing in Utah and the skiing was just too good 25 minutes from home to justify a 6 hour drive (Exhibit A - Exhibit B). Fortunately Aspen Highlands was open for an extended weekend over April 23-24 so we finally just got in the car and make the trip. Utah got hammered by another nice snowstorm while we were in Colorado... of course!

The town was dead (mud season), which suits our style. We stayed at the Molly Gibson Lodge - a very nice lodge right in the heart of Aspen within walking / leisure strolling distance to everything. In terms of the skiing  - we skinned up Aspen Mountain a few times, hiked the Highlands Bowl a couple times during two days of lift-skiing at Highlands, and capped the long weekend in style by skiing Castle Peak. The final day was easily the apex, as you'll see in the photos below...

Friday April 22

Broke up the drive with a run from the Kokopelli TH in Loma, CO. We highly recommend running here if you are driving along I-70.

Saturday April 23

Skinned AJAX followed by some lift-skiing at Aspen Highlands.

Hike Fast, Ski Slow is a motto that suits my style!

Sunday April 24

Lift-skiing at Aspen Highlands followed by a skin up AJAX. 

Monday April 25

We needed something sensational to cap the trip and decided to take a stab at Castle Peak. At 14,265 feet, Castle is the highest peak in the Elk Range and serves up some of the best views around.

I skied Castle in 2009 after a failed attempt in 2008.

We didn't know what the conditions would be like up high (sometimes the north couloir can get wind-blasted and doesn't hold snow) but from what we saw looking towards that zone from AJAX over the previous two days, my guess was that the north face would be filled in. Luckily, I was right. The other thing we weren't sure of was how far down the snow line would be relative to where we would park the car at the end of the Castle Creek road. Luckily, again, the snow extended all the way down to the gate at Ashcroft. That meant a LONG approach, but continuous snow is always better than the alternative. We skinned about 5 miles up the road before turning towards Montezuma Basin, then after another ~2 miles up through the headwalls in the basin, reached the summit via kicking a booter up the last 900 feet.

It was a really fun outing. Skiing 14ers is typically not about skiing hero snow (that's what lapping ridge lines in the Wasatch is for!). You typically have long approaches, variable snow conditions, blasting wind, and some skating/skinning on the way out. But there is always a sense of accomplishment when you look back up at a 14,000 foot peak after skiing off the top. Its always worth it.

And in the spirit of posting videos... here's a classic: