Schif

Day 3 Solitude Bluebird and Bumps Woke up and immediately hit the snooze, Snowbird beat me up so I wasn’t as extremely motivated to get up before the sun. Had a leisurely breakfast of eggs and toast and headed out. Dropped off Wally at dog daycare and headed into Big Cottonwood Canyon. Pulled in around 9:30 to the Moonbeam base area, booted up, grabbed a ticket, hit the bathroom, and was on the snow a little before 10. Up Moonbeam and down the widest groomers I’ve ever seen under a perfectly blue cloudless Utah sky. We were shooting for the Apex express lift but that was having a temporary mechanical issue so we scooted over to the slow sunrise triple for two nice runs down Timberline/Sensation and then North Star. Apex express was open now so we hopped on it for a trip up where we explored Wall Street/Main Street and Blue Spruce with the occasional dip off trail. One more ride up Apex Express and we cruised down to the Summit Express lift. At this point, I would like to say that I do not like chairs that follow the terrain and go down on their way up the mountain. It feels weird to be going downhill so I was pretty pumped when the chair eventually started to go up very steeply. Once we got to the summit, it became very clear that it had not snowed in a week. Lots of exposed rock, shrubs and absolutely everything was bumped up here. There were also more people than expected since everyone was funneled into the trails Mine/Dynamite and no one was bothering with the ridge or the cirques. This meant it was just 1800 vertical feet of crusty and icy bumps down to the village. Needless to say this was our one and only trip to the top. We took Apex Express up and cruised down to the Moonbeam base area where we dropped our gear in racks and walked over to the car for another round of socially distant lunch. Similar spread to the day before but @skiincy packed a thermos of hot water and made some Ramen noodles for us which was a nice touch. We relaxed for about 45 minutes and enjoyed the crisp air and sunshine and we both dropped a layer. Back to the Moonbeam Express and then from the top of that we took the Powderhorn II lift and cruised down Eagle Ridge until the snow below looked pretty good and we dropped down Paradise lost which was fun and had good snow but was still a little rocky and had a decent amount of shrubs poking out. Down to the eagle express and up again to cruise down the same route but stayed on the groomer to Sunshine Bowl before getting on Eagle Express again. This turned out to be a really fun lift and we took it 4 more times alternating between dropping down some nice steep blacks and cruising on the western groomers. We cruised down over to the Apex Express lift again and did two runs in the little bowl below Abbas Alley and after a full day of mostly bumps decided to go down, up Moonbeam Express and carry our speed past that lift to ski right to the car. I dropped off the little cat track next to the parking lot and almost got hit by a car coming down the lane but no one else besides me and the lady driving seemed to see it happen. All in all a great sunshiny day where I spent most of it with sunglasses on instead of goggles and enjoyed the super comfortable weather and some great groomers. The slick bumps on most of the mountain were a major drawback and occasionally I would take a left when @skiincy would take a right and wind up on some not so great snow or just scraping through the bumps for a while but still it was fun. I would love to go back and get to explore more of the mountain because some of the terrain looked amazing but with the look of the snow it wasn’t worth going for. I’m sure there are some here that would disagree but miles of bumps isn’t the most fun for me. Weather 10/10 Snow 5/10 Fun 8.5/10 Pics to follow

Awesome stuff!!! Now I really want a touring set up!

Sounds like I missed a pretty epic Sausage Sunday. Ski you all next weekend though

Day 2. Snowbird. The Bird is the word. 9am-3:45pm 21.276 vertical feet // 15 lifts Woke up early and got ready to head to Snowbird, UT for the day. Made some eggs and tried to stay hydrated. Threw a few things in the car, dropped off the dog, and started the drive into Little Cottonwood Canyon. About 35 minutes later at 8:15am, we got a nice parking spot near Snowbird Center and booted up. Walked up to the ticket window which is located in the Tram building and had to wait a few minutes for it to open. Just as a heads up --The sign read "Friends & Family: $98" but that rate is only valid for Snowbird passholders, not Ikon. Ikon passholders get 25% off the combo Snowbird/Alta ticket. Snowbird only gives the 25% off the Snowbird/Alta combo ticket, which is significantly more expensive than just the Snowbird alone one. It still works out to be a little bit less than window price but not the kind of discount that you would expect. Ticket was acquired and we went to the line for the tram. They are pretty serious about masking up all over the resort and Buffs or bandannas don't cut it. There was a girl walking around the line handing out masks, if you didn't have one, and everyone was pretty good about keeping their distance. They are only letting 25 people in each tram so they actually had a number of barrels filled with water for ballast. We got first tram of the day and dropped down the back side right away into Mineral Basin. Not having any idea where we were -- we stuck to the Lupine Loop and then down to Bassanova, occasionally popping off of the cat track but coming back onto it fairly quickly. Back up Mineral Basin Express and down Path to Paradise where we both dropped into the bowl at different spots but wound up at the bottom of Mineral Basin Express. Went up Mineral Basin Express and @skiincy had to jump on a call, so she went into the Summit at Snowbird and I took another run. This is the point where Snowbird really started to hit me. The size of this place was stunning from the first Tram ride but at this point I realized that Snowbird, like the Honey Badger, don't care. Outside of the marked "easier way down", which has pitches towards the lift that are as steep as Razor's Edge, there is absolutely no signage and it's a complete free for all. As I'm writing this, I had to reference the trail names on Nancy's Ikon ski tracker - otherwise, we would have no idea of some of these names. On this solo run I hopped off the cat track pretty early and dove down through some fun steeps and wound up in a pretty gnarly and narrow chute that came out of nowhere. I got down to the bottom of the Mineral Basin lift and was really sucking wind. Thankfully I didn't get altitude sickness but I had no idea how high Snowbird really was (11,000 feet at the top of the Tram). After these 3 runs my boots were a little too tight so I popped into the Summit at Snowbird and took a 10 minute break where I downed a few glasses of water. Back out with Nancy this time and we explored Mineral Basin a little more. It was sunny and beautiful over there. The snow was a little crusty but not bad. We went back to the front side of Snowbird at this point and took Chip's Run down occasionally dropping off of the trail onto Hot Foot Gully, and Who Dunnit before ending at the Peruvian Express lift. Up the lift and through the Peruvian Tunnel back to Mineral Basin where we did two laps off of the Baldy Lift. I would try to list the trails we took but honestly with the complete lack of signage it could have been almost anything. Back up Peruvian Express and our day at Mineral Basin was over. We headed skiers left now and dropped down Old Ladies to Regulator Johnson and Barry Barry Steep until we wound up at the bottom of the Gad Valley at the bottom of the Gadzoom lift. At this point I was really sucking wind and my foot was hurting so we hopped on the parking lot shuttle and got dropped off at the car for lunch. We had some sandwiches and I had lots of Gatorade and water before we walked over to the Tram again. Had to wait for one Tram before we headed up on the second one. Weather at the top of the tram was rough with clouds blowing over the top of the mountain and a strong wind. Back down Regulator Johnson (or there abouts) and down to the Gadzoom lift for two laps. We hit up the Gad 2 lift for one run because Nancy wanted to go down Bananas as a last run which turned out to be ungroomed and a long bumpy last run of the day to completely drain our legs and my lungs. The drive back to Salt Lake City was pretty simple, we picked up an exhausted Wally and the three of us crashed almost immediately.

No idea, didn't ask.

Wednesday 10/6/2021 Flew into Salt Lake City after a layover in Denver on Wednesday. Very easy flying right now from PHL to DEN on Southwest. I actually had an entire row to myself so that was nice. As an update, economy parking is closed at the Philadelphia airport right now so they are only charging $3 more per day to park in the garage that's right next to the terminals. Got picked up at the SLC airport and went to neighborhood dog park (Herman Franks) where Wally got to run around for a little while and showed off some of his leaping skills. After that we went to Wasatch Brewery in the Sugarhouse section of Salt Lake City. We had Wally with us so we ended up eating outside on the patio in one of those igloos. It was actually really nice, there were lights strung above it, Wally could hang out off his leash and there was a space heater and blankets though it wasn't terribly cold. I had a Buffalo Burger and @skiincy had a turkey burger with grilled mushrooms. Nancy had the Apricot Hefeweizen and I had the Evo Amber Ale, both the big 22 oz pours. Went back to the AirBnB, unpacked and went to bed early in preparation for Snowbird the next day

Trip reports to come soon.

I'm two days behind on the stats manager. I hope I don't get a ding

How long you going to be out there @Johnny LawLaw? Bird is the word for Thursday and Friday next week.

I've got the 32 lashed now. They told me the exact same thing about molding them and they broke in on their own really well. I know the pain of getting rid of boots. I kept my old Salomon ones a year too long because I loved them so much I just couldn't part with them.

Wow Just Wow

Always will be. If it wasn't a pandemic season I would suggest a PASR day up there.

Part of me wants to care about Camelback and the rest of the PA mountains but there is another part of me wonders why the extra drive past Blue would be worth it.

I've got to work on Saturday so probably Friday if there is a window of no rain and Sunday for me.

His check engine light probably isn't even on.

https://www.pennlive.com/coronavirus/2020/12/pa-to-lift-temporary-coronavirus-mitigation-orders-jan-4-but-these-restrictions-will-still-be-in-place.html

A little bit, yeah.

@saltyantI usually have it in my car so if you need a code read, not a Code Red (seriously English is a mess), I would be happy to let you use it. And yes autozone will definitely do it for free and I think they will install a battery for you too, though that's pretty simple on your own.

Do you have a code reader? They are cheap and help when the light comes on so you know what you're dealing with before you have to take it in.

The pizza and bbq trucks were closed by 7 last night. I was surprised they didn't try to stay open a little longer.

Really nice night out there. Not many crowds at all, seemed like mostly teenagers and a decent number of rentals out so I'm glad blue is making some money. Run of the night as definitely Main Street. Got my first runs on razors and nmdw so that was nice. Soft edgeable snow all over the mountain with only a few slick spots but they were still turnable so overall awesome night. It was also really warm out so it was really comfortable riding.

I'll be heading up for a night sesh tonight. Looking forward to whatever is left of the nice snow.

I'm thinking Saturday but I'm not sure yet. Probably a midday session on Monday too.

That just means you can put some really nice Christmas lines in that grass tomorrow

I've never skied in Europe so hopefully someone can enlighten me, but the general impression I get is that there is less infrastructure there. Fewer lifts, most likely much less snowmaking and fewer lodges and buildings. If true this would streamline operations a little and you wouldn't need as much in terms of daily revenue to make up for it.