It’s not easy getting up at 4:30 in the morning, but when there is powder to be shredded it’s a little easier. And when you’ve been huffing and puffing up the mountain for an hour in the dark and you start to get your first glimpse of the powder coated mountains in the early light, you’re glad that you dragged your butt out of bed.
On this early morning tour we went up Flagstaff mountain in Little Cottonwood Canyon and traversed out Emma Ridge. We just rode a little subridge back down to the road and then it was off to work. I was on my Burton split and I was touring with my co-worker Chris Pearson and our friend Dave.
You might know that I’m a big fan of Powder Mountain and I love it when people figure out just how rad Pow Mow really is. Looks like it didn’t take the Rossignol crew long to find Pow Mow’s gems. Check out their great video.
Do you like night riding? I’m not talking about David Hasselhoff’s break out TV series, I’m talking about shredding under the lights at Brighton. I personally love it, but, maybe that’s my East Coast roots showing. Anyway, the best part about night skiing is that it’s cheap. Oh, and it’s uncrowded. Oh, and if you need to warm up and your over 21 you can head in to Molly Greens. But, that’s besides the point. Thanks to The Truth’s website, FightTheUgly.com, it’s now even cheaper. Print out this coupon and ride the lifts under the lights for only $16. You can’t loose.
On Sunday I was up at Solitude for the opening of the Powderhorn chair. While conditions were still a little thin, there was some great snow out there. Here’s a video with some of the action.
Just got back from Snowbasin, where we spent the morning riding in a driving snow storm. The snow was falling about as heavy as I’d ever seen it snow. I think the Lake Effect snow gun was pointed directly at Snowbasin this morning. We’d take a run, circle back to the same area 20 minutes later and our tracks were totally gone. It was unreal. Afterwards I treated myself to a burger at Earl’s Lodge which has some of the best resort food anywhere. The drive back to SLC was especially gnarly, the usual 45 minute trip ended up taking two hours, it was puking snow so hard that we were driving blind through a blizzard. There was about 17 inches of snow when we got to Snowbasin in the morning and it probably snowed another 8 inches while we were there.
If you’re getting out and about, keep in mind that the avalanche danger is high right now. Anytime you get snow like this it is going to add significant weight to the snow pack and increase the avalanche danger.
According to the National Weather Service, it doesn’t look like this storm pattern we’ve been in for the last month is going to let up. I know that everyone here in our offices hope that it never does. See you on the slopes.