Winter's Last Stand

A cold mid-April storm system that dropped 5.5 feet of new snow over a week, just when you think this season couldn't get any better.

Opensnow did a great recap of the season and how it compared to other years. Upper LCC is sitting at 600-650" of total snowfall and base depths of 175".  The epic 2010-2011 season was snowier, but my life wasn't setup to fully take advantage at that point (weekend warrior). Two years ago ('16-17) was a really good season. But this year was easily my best of all time. The snow never really stopped from mid-December to mid-April. We have skied SO MUCH POWDER this year. I've already surpassed my record for most vertical climbed in a year, and I'm sure I'll easily surpass my record for total # of days skiing by the time it all turns to dirt in July. What has been great about this season is a good lower to middle elevation snowpack which allowed easy access to a lot of fun skiing zones.

Recap of April 1st to date. My sense is that we have now officially moved on to Spring... but you never know if we get hit with another storm or two.

Wednesday April 3

Dusk patrol in fresh but mushy snow.

Friday April 5 and Sunday April 7

Fun afternoon of groomer skiing at Deer Valley on Friday, and then a bail in Red Pine on Sunday (went too early for the snow to be soften up). I didn;t take any photos on either day, but we did end up playing basketball a lot that weekend to pass the time.

Wednesday April 10

WINTER IS BACK. Starting with the evening prior, upper LCC saw 66" over over the next 7 days. Winter's last stand was underway. We started in Mill D...

Thursday April 11

More LCC road closures, so back to Mill D...

Friday April 12

Emma laps in A LOT of snow!!!

Saturday April 13

One of the great April powder days of all time. Every aspect skied great, and it stayed cloudy enough to keep the snow amazing all day (we finished by skiing Two Trees at 3:15pm in dry powder). At over 11K of climbing, it was Andrea's second biggest day ever.

Sunday April 14

Leftovers in and around Scottie's Bowl to cap off 5 straight days of incredible skiing.

Tuesday April 16

ANOTHER storm system came through. It was moist snow but skied fast and smooth. Possibly the final Emma powder laps of the season.

Home Sweet Home / March Madness

What's new?

We came back from Canada and straight back into an all-time winter in the Wasatch. This month has just flown by. It snowed several feet while we were gone, and then several more feet in the first week we were back home. Friday March 15th was a crescendo moment in terms of powder frenzy. Then as we transitioned into spring on the calendar it just kept snowing. It would get warm for a day or two, then another storm would hit us. Its been an absolute dream. 

I skied 24 out of 31 days in March, which has to be a record for me (and missed 3 days traveling to and from Canada or else it could have been more!).

Here's a quick recap of the rest of March...

Tuesday March 12th 

Dawn Patrol in West Porter with Matt. Good leftover powder.

Wednesday March 13th

Dawn Patrol in West Porter with Andrea. Surprisingly great new powder!

Thursday March 14th 

Dawn Patrol in Mill D w/ Andrea. Really light cold snow.

Friday March 15th

Dawn Patrol in Scottie's w/ Andrea. Arguably one of the best days of the season. DEEEEEEEEP!!!

Saturday March 16th

Deer Valley groomers day in the sunshine.

Sunday March 17th

Toured all over White Pine looking for the remaining cold, dry snow. We found it! Red Baldy laps were especially great. One of the more beautiful tours of the season, too.

Snowpack as of March 15th... oh yeah!

Monday March 18th

First time skiing from the Neff's Canyon TH w/ Matt and Andrea. We skied Memorial Couloirs #1 and #4 in excellent conditions.

Tuesday March 19th

Back to the Memorial Couloirs w/ Matt. Skied #6 and then an offshoot of Apollo.

Friday March 22nd

Solo laps off Patsy Marley

Saturday March 23rd

Friends in town for the weekend. Groomers day at Deer Valley.

Sunday March 24th

Lift skiing at Brighton. Snowed 6-8 inches and for east coast city girls, it was the deepest snow of their lives!

Monday March 25th

Dawn Patrol w/ Andrea... Emma laps in well over a foot of snow. Oh man this felt great!

Tuesday March 26th

Solo sunrise laps off Patsy.

Friday March 29th

The storm that was forecasted to be 4-8" earlier in the week turned into 20"+. What's new this season? Dawn patrol in Mill D and then I was so stoked that I went skiing in Mill D again after work.

Saturday March 30th

Spring powder at its finest. The sun is strong this time of the year so we got as much south facing turning as possible. Biggest vertical day of the season (15K). 

Sunday March 31st

Days Draw never disappoints. Everything that wasn't high and north facing got hammered by the sun yesterday, but the main runs in the draw were still soft and dry. Another 10K day. Love this time of the year!

That's it for March. The Alta base is sitting at 160", and Snowbird's year to date total is 580" of snow. We're skiing until its dirt, and its going to be a long time until its dirt.