2011 Utah Ski: Day 6.5

To borrow the same technique as from the Day 5.5 entry, I took some frames directly from my helmet cam, since I apparently didn't have enough presence of mind while in the midst of nail-biting adrenaline rushes or back-breaking core exercises to take my Canon out.

One particularly noteworthy event was when I followed the guys into the backcountry right after lunch. Luckily, Tracy had decided to strike off onto neighboring groomed runs and meet us at the bottom of the mountain. Here, I had a moment of doubt when the guys ducked beneath the line to take advantage of the powder in the glade beyond - the yellow sign and rope was not to declare it a ski boundary, but to warn that this was avalanche country and to only enter through gates in the boundary. (Yet another reminder this week that I should read up on avalanches and avalanche-survival techniques.) But between the sheer number of tracks that had been made through this area and the relative flatness of the glade with no overhanging tree-less slopes, I thought that I could at least follow the boys for a while and then strike back toward groomed runs if it really started looking hairy.

As it turned out, I didn't need to worry. It wasn't just relatively flat - it was flat, with even a little bit of uphill. All these tracks were made by people attempting, briefly, to escape the inevitable, but we all eventually buckled down for some paddling. The sheer length over which I had to lever myself also taught me a neat trick - my triceps are a lot weaker than my core muscles. I ended up seeing the tips of my skis a lot as I used my abdominals to help push me along rather than my arms ... it worked surprisingly well!

While there were some fun moments amongst the trees - including one very brief section that was almost slalom-like in the natural tight curves the terrain had created in an alley - there were also some pretty gnarly instances such as the above, where there was tracked-out old snow over pretty rough and steep terrain (note the slant of the trees). It was a pretty physically challenging area overall, but honestly, I think this was where I truly began to enjoy myself!

This was a rather long detour, and for a little while there, I was afraid it would end unhappily. Notice that sign on a post that I circled in red? It's a cliff warning. Ed's parked where he is because none of us could quite tell where the cliff was - to the left of the trees, through the trees, or to the right, and none of us really wanted to find out the hard way!

I finally volunteered to venture right, and whaddya know, got it in one ... that most definitely looked like a cliff. I backed off reeeeeeeaaaally carefully and headed in the exact opposite direction.

Here is where it gets really funny. This is where we ended up when we began to inch our way to the left of the cliff warning sign. Once again, note the slant of the trees and the mountain range beyond it, then check out the line of that slope the guys are sitting on. From our perspective at the time, it had looked like the slope simply dropped after that - not able to see past it, we thought we had managed to strand ourselves on a bluff, with cliffs on all sides. Hilariously, this was also when my camera's battery died - this picture is literally the last frame of the video segment. The camera had also managed to just capture my disbelieving, "Holy crap - " before the audio cut off. Talk about a cliff-hanger.

But considering I am currently updating this blog, it obviously all ended well! The slope line had been an optical illusion, and when we continued creeping over it, we encountered angles which were steep, but certainly no worse than anything else we've encountered thus far. It took us a little while, but we eventually made our way back to the runs and hooked up with Tracy again. (Thank goodness I had loaned her my phone just before the run, though - we would never have been able to find each other again otherwise!)

Though I felt like we had a rather haphazard day of skiing, being on an unfamiliar mountain and trying to figure out what were the best areas to hit after they've had no fresh snow for several days, there were still several noteworthy events left.

For instance, this slope to the left. Our second run after lunch, we returned to the ridge with the "Path to Paradise" sign, and this time took a look at the bowl on the other side ... except that the bowl looked like it had been windblown and crusted over and was double-diamond steep to boot. The guys took one look and were already making uncertain noises, but I was ready to be challenged after what I had recently learned.

Before I could even mention that I was thinking of dropping here, however, Tracy abruptly declared that she wanted to go this way - and then promptly dropped over the edge without a second thought! I couldn't resist and bust out laughing - our least-skilled skier was suddenly the one wanting to tackle this and didn't even pause before shuttling herself onto it!

She did a pretty fabulous job - and it was no small thing, as one might be able to tell from the angle of my skis against the slope. There's Tracy, that tiny figure downslope from me! While the boys traversed the lip of the bowl, looking for an easier way down, I followed after her to make sure she got down okay, and stayed behind her in case I needed to help with any yard sales she left behind if she happened to fall; which, admirably, she did not except for one stumble at the top.

Oh yeah, remember when I mentioned in the previous post to keep in mind that haze hanging over Salt Lake City? Well, I took another picture at the top of the bowl, when it was close to the afternoon closing time:

That haze is smog. As my neighbor on the flight here had explained, Salt Lake City can actually have worse smog problems than LA, between the natural bowl it sits in and inverted air layers. Today was one of those days, as one can tell; and actually, as we drove back, we saw all sorts of electronic billboards declaring that air quality tomorrow was going to be especially bad, and to please refrain from unnecessary driving.

At the end of the day, to squeeze the last possible drop of experience from the trip, I encouraged Eric and Ed to race to the bottom so that we can catch the lift one last time before they close - with fifteen minutes to spare, it shouldn't have been a problem. What I hadn't counted on was them taking every black and backcountry route they could find along the way! Ordinarily, it would have been a simple matter to speed my way down groomed slopes, but by the time we hit the lift bottom, my thighs were killing me from the moguls, crud, and trees I had to avoid.

But, this was the last run of the week. So, when Ed bowed out but Eric claimed he was going to go up one more time, I sucked it in and went with him ... which nearly turned out a hilarious disaster. Thank goodness we could take our time now, and it was actually great to have the mountain all quiet around us now that all the other people have gone down to the lodge, but between the exertion of the last run and the routes Eric favored (he's even worse than Ed in his favored choice of terrain), I was nearly ready to call uncle.

See that bottleneck? That was rather typical. Don't let the scale fool you - it was barely wide enough to fit my skis length-wise, with a slope that I had certainly wished I could make quite a few more turns on! I wish I had taken a picture from above before I tackled it so that fact would be more clear, but I was a little too preoccupied with gearing up my nerve to remember.

Later on, I performed a faceplant in what seemed like the only patch of deep powder on the whole mountain, because it took me a whole ten minutes to dig myself out (and was successful only after I gave up on keeping my skis on and popped one off so that I could get back on my feet). I was definitely beginning to feel overtaxed.

Even later, we had to build up speed to traverse a flat plain, just before crossing a ditch to get onto the right trail to the lodge. The most hilarious part of this maneuver was the ditch - going into it wasn't the problem, it was the other side, where the bank made a sharp upwards thrust that was very nearly perpendicular. Eric ventured it first and made it look easy, so I then took a deep breath and followed ... and did what Eric later observed was very nearly a backflip. It had been, possibly, one of the most memorably scary moments of my life - my skis had seemed to shoot straight up from under me, I shot over the lip of the ditch while flashing the bottoms of my skis at Eric, and I could feel the rear tips of my skis literally skating across the snow as if I was some demented biker pulling a wheelie before I managed to push my weight forward enough (quite by accident - I was pretty much flailing by this point) to slap my skis back down on the snow. I was laughing hysterically by the time I pulled abreast of Eric - emphasis on the "hysterical".

Thankfully, we eventually found our way back to the main lodge without any further incidents. I gave thanks that we had a pretty brilliant week of skiing without accruing any truly egregious injuries. As we packed up to leave, we were treated to the sight of the gondola returning to dock - only, the passengers were not in the gondola, not even on top of the cabin, but riding on top of the pylons (or whatever you call them) that attach the gondola to its supporting cables! I was so sad that I didn't whip out my camera quickly enough to capture the whole crew perched nonchalantly there, but here you can see at least one figure (in black with what looks like a white cap on, just to the right of the Snowbird icon) still visible just before the gondola docked completely.

Dinner was the auspice of Tracy this night. Between the late hour, long drive back, and this being our last night together, we decided to eat out. Through a tourist booklet, she found the Red Iguana, which proved to be a wonderfully eclectic and very authentic Mexican restaurant.

They actually have two locations located within 4 blocks of each other, and we had gone to their original location first. But after being told it would be a twenty minute wait while the other location had no wait at all, we moved over to Red Iguana 2. (Funny enough, they had plenty of room for bodies in the restaurant, but their parking lot was valet-only except for a few feet of street parking. Rather than depend on the valet, we sort of fudged it a little - there had been just enough space at the curb for our car if we moved the valet sign. So, the guys very discreetly and very nonchalantly took the sign down while I parked, then put it back a little off to the side so that it was still visible from the street.)

I actually liked the second location better - it was roomier, and the decor was no less festive:

The food was as fabulous as all the Yelp ratings and reviewers claimed. Hurray for our last dinner! We certainly made up for all the calories we had lost that day.

Aaah, dessert. I love flan, and between Ed and Tracy indicating that they would be willing to share, I decided to indulge:

Sadly, Tracy got to the cherry before I could take a picture. She returned the stem, but it simply doesn't have the same ... well, body to it.

And that's it for the 2011 ski week! We staggered home, fat and happy, packed up the next morning, and then it was off to the airport where we scattered back to our respective homes. Now that the ski week postings have been finally wrapped up, other than a final update post with any videos that I manage to get rendered and uploaded, I'll be returning to the Israel photos the next time I post!

2011 Utah Ski: Day 6.0

Wow, we've finally reached the end! The last day of our ski week has arrived.

We had decided to strike out for Snowbird this time, which was 1.5 hours to the south of us. So we all set our alarm clocks to 7 am to make the most of the day, and after getting our gear together, we piled into the car and hit the road.

It was kind of a new thing to be up in time to see the dawn - not only did the winter hours help, but being surrounded by all these mountain ridges and terrain, we saw the sun peaking up anew at various points of the morning. This was only a few minutes after we had left our rooms - I couldn't resist and took this photo over my shoulder as I drove. Not bad for an almost-blind shot! It's just too bad that I didn't have the nerve to take another shot of the frozen-over reservoir while I was driving on the road that wound around it - with the mist hovering and the ice glazing everything into monochrome - from the terrain to the houses to the vegetation - and the snow-covered water in the foreground, it was the quintessential winter wonderland.

To save time, we didn't make breakfast this day, but decided to hit whatever fast food joint we could all agree on. Everyone had unanimously shot down Ed's suggestion (both the evening before and this morning) of McDonald's - he himself claimed that he ordinarily would never have entertained the thought of Mickey-D's, except that he has made a tradition of getting their breakfast hash brown on the way to Mt. Hood in our old neighborhood of Hood River. But several obstacles soon made themselves apparent in our search for an alternative: 1) we weren't passing all that many fast food joints (as opposed to sit-down restaurants like Denny's/Wendy's), and those that we did 2) were not open at that hour to serve breakfast. (You can probably tell where this is going, particularly if you've taken a peek at the next photos.)

Eventually, we hit Salt Lake City, about halfway between Eden (where we were staying) and Snowbird, and finally hit a massive knot of fast food chains. In 'n Out was what first caught my eye, but as we swung by it, sadly, it was obviously not yet open. Ironically, right next to it was a McDonald's, and between Tracy's need for a bathroom and Ed's ambivalence toward the chain for breakfast, the rest of us finally capitulated.

 

Boy, were we in for a shock. There's apparently something called a McDonald's "Cafe" ... which, I guess, translates to a sort of luxury-brand McDonald's? It's certainly the nicest McDonald's I had ever stepped into, between the water feature (that's Ed posing in front of it I swear) and all the other decorations and decor. They also apparently have a breakfast burrito now which is actually quite decent - and surprisingly filling for the price and "quality". Between that and a yogurt parfait, I actually wasn't feeling too badly at all for stopping at a Mickey-D's.

Thank goodness for the "bracing" amount of food, too ... unlike the mountains local to Eden, the parking lots at Snowbird were rather like what one would expect in California - packed. I dropped off the others with the equipment at the lodge, and then I went to park the car. Though they have a parking lot shuttle running, it seemed to be taking a rather long time, so I decided to hoof it - and ended up walking the entire length, uphill, by myself. By the time I reached the lodge, the shuttle was only just leaving it! To add insult to injury, the ticketing office and ski area was not on the "ground" floor, nor even on the second ... they were all on the third floor, the building having been built into the side of a slope. So I manfully trooped my way up three flights of stairs in my ski boots (only to discover at the end of the day, much to my disgust, that the stairs had been winding around an elevator shaft - I could have taken the elevator instead of the manual route!), and finally collapsed on a picnic bench in the main plaza next to the others who had wondered what was taking me so long.

After hooking up with one of the free mountain guides which apparently Snowbird offers as a courtesy in the mornings, we got a wide tour of the mountain ranges. One of their claims to fame is a tunnel with a moving belt which they've built into the side of a mountain - rather than build a lift to the other side of a ridge, they simply burrowed through, and you can ski/ride onto the belt (rather like the conveyers in airports) and let it transport you to the other side:

(Don't mind the psychedelic coloring in the above photo - I just had to adjust the heck out of the shadows in order to make the people and tunnel opening visible at all, as we had been in the lee/shadow of the ridge.)

I rather felt as if I were on a Disneyland ride, and nearly started humming "It's a Small World". The tunnel felt long, but I suppose it was as much a function of the belt, which was very slow-moving. Too bad there were no handrails or seats - my feet/legs tend to feel fatigued if I don't get to move my weight around every few seconds, and as one can see in the picture, the belt doesn't really give you a whole lot of maneuvering room.

But Snowbird kept things amusing too - there were constructions cones scattered along the length of the tunnel, holding up signs with various statistics about the tunnel and its construction, fun facts and jokes. There were also, amusingly enough, posters and pictures hung up in some of the nooks, as if we were touring some living room or museum, and could simply get off the belt and walk up to them to examine them in more detail. (Actually, now that I think about it, maybe we could very well have. D'oh - lost opportunities! I would have liked to examine some of those things in more detail.)

I took this picture mostly because the signs tickle me: "Road to Provo" and "Path to Paradise", perched right on what looks like a precipitous edge and people kinda peering dubiously past. Snowbird had a wealth of what I thought was "interesting" terrain - for instance, the photo looks pretty intimidating, but if you squint toward that line of a trail just to the right of the guy in red, one could skirt the entire black diamond bowl to an actual, groomed blue run at the end of that trail. So, it was a weird mix of the really challenging with pseudo-challenging, but you kind of have to look sideways to figure out which is which and how to get to them.


(One amusing anecdote the guide told us was how a trail leading to some green and blue runs used to be called "Death Road". But, the marketers, fearing that such an ominous sounding name has been discouraging beginners from using it to head toward ... well, "greener" pastures, renamed it. To "Fluffy Bunny". We all boggled.)

This is actually the same ridge as the previous photo. While Ed stopped to take some photos with Eric beside him, I took the chance to snap some shots of my own. Notice the haze overhanging the valley in the distance? Keep an eye out for that later in the next post. It is overhanging Salt Lake City, and it will have changed dramatically by the end of the day.

The guide left us after an hour or two, and after a few more runs, we broke for lunch. Here is a photo - and subject - courtesy of Tracy ... she had stuck a wrapper upright in my helmet and borrowed Ed's phone to take a picture of it and send it to me. (Why must everywhere involve stairs in this place ... we had to troop up to the second floor to find seating in this lodge.)

All in all, it was a rather laid-back morning, but things certainly got more interesting in the latter half of the day ...

2011 Utah Ski: Day 5.5

After we disembarked, we had to wait around a bit until everyone unloaded their equipment. The driver was taking care of some stuff, and I took the chance to grab this shot - I'm sad now that I didn't capture more of the vista. It seems a little surreal, now, to see this big construction-caterpillar like machine sitting there seemingly on the edge of the world, overlooking a sea of fog.

And here we are at the beginning of our adventure! For all that we had 16+ people along for the ride, people scattered pretty quickly, and amidst all this space we suddenly seemed very few in number. Past the snowboarders is the direction my instructors and I eventually went; "Big Kash" the sign says.

Needless to say, it was beautiful here. In the entire time we were heading down, we didn't encounter anyone else - and though there were plenty of tracks from previous riders/skiers, there were also still wide swaths of untouched stuff. Rather than video-ize the entire lesson, I took a bunch of frames directly from the videos instead to throw in here (thank goodness for HD quality):

This was probably pretty early on, while we were still high enough to see most of the peaks and valleys. We would eventually make our way down in between the nearest folds, after cutting our way through many of the trees. Up here, the snow was pretty tracked out, but below you'll see we hit some really pretty stuff - the instructor knew her way around!

This shot's here because I just really liked the cave-like feel. I basically played follow-the-leader, and stuck to the tail of the instructor as she wended her way through the forest.

I included this shot mostly because of the snow - check out the track the instructor was laying down! Not quite same-day fresh, but the snow was deep and very soft and smooth.

Action shot! (Kinda.) It just tickled me to see my own shadow in the image - and there is the instructor in front of me again, leading the way.

As one would expect when skiing down an entire mountain, there was a wide variety of terrain. In one of these open glades, it was always a hard decision to figure out if I wanted to simply go straight and enjoy gliding over the powder or to play with as many wide turns as I could and simply plow through it because I could.

Halfway down, we reconnoitered. We would eventually make our way down into that valley, which would end up at one of the regular lifts.

Here, we're speeding our way across the valley floor! Check out all those smooth lines ... as the assistant instructor remarked with a laugh, I ended this particular run with a wide, wide grin on my face.

It was a surprise when it all came to an end. Even if the lesson itself was "only" 2.5-3 hours long, I had forgotten that I had arrived in the middle of the day, rather than in the morning like usual ... it simply felt like it wasn't enough! But I definitely wrung everything I could out of the day - I learned some very valuable tips which made controlled, slow turns on even steep slopes of either powder or crud nearly effortless ... something I very much look forward to employing in the future. (The instructor had commented at the end of the day, "You are very trainable!" I was glad for the compliment, but afterward it also made me feel, amusingly, rather like a pet canine who had performed well for a trainer.)

We didn't start heading back to the ski instruction area until 3:30 pm; which, unfortunately, meant that I was too late to catch another ride on the snowcat. I was left to my own devices for the last half hour in which the regular lifts were open, so I took one or two speed runs and a backcountry run to practice my new skills, before calling it a day. However, this time, even without Ed, I finally looked up and took in the scenery all on my own:

I had been coasting down a green run toward the parking lot when I spied this. I screeched to a stop, very nearly causing some boarders behind me to crash into me, before I hiked back up-slope a few feet to take the shot. While the scene was very beautiful, it's not quite as brilliant as some other scenery shots in the previous posts, except for the clouds which had been what really caught my notice:

In between the mountain ridges, the fog/mist was so thick and so low that they looked like clouds simply spilling over the edge of a bowl. It looked fantastic - whipped cream foam, being poured into the valleys. It made me wish I had brought along a camera with a higher zoom and better manual settings.

2011 Utah Ski: Day 5.0

Wednesday was glorious. Not just the weather, which you'll see is pretty glorious by itself, but this turned out to be an extra special day, even if it didn't start out very promisingly.

The boys were out for the count. Poor Eric was worn out between the skiing and his cold, and Ed decided he would rather save up his energy for our last, sixth day. Tracy was feeling rather run-down too, but in the end, it was work that was the final straw and she decided to stay in also in order to catch up on papers.

I had vacillated between throwing in the towel too since no one else was going, but in the end, decided that I had traveled 800 miles to be here (if one didn't count my rush back from Israel the week before to be back in the States in time for this trip) and by jove, I was going to make the most of it. So, in a flurry of research and calls, I ended up making a reservation for a group lesson at 1 pm on Powder Mountain, and stayed in long enough to also do some work until noon, when their half-day ticket kicked in. (While I have skied a whole day by myself before, I'm a social animal where the sport is concerned, and if there are no free tours going on, I would usually plunk down some extra bucks in order to get pointers along with some touring and good company.)

I pulled into Powder Mountain's lowest parking lot to the sight of only a half dozen other cars scattered around its brim - while the upper lots had far more cars, certainly nothing was even near to max capacity, which was a rather exciting thought where slope crowds were concerned. At noon sharp, I entered their ski school center and started signing up for everything, chatting with the two ladies manning it at the moment while I made purchases for a lift ticket and the group lesson. We had a lovely exchange, and this was when things really started looking up.

They were wonderful and sold me a Utah resident lift ticket, even cheaper than the half-day ticket. They spent quite a bit of time quizzing me on what I wanted to do and learn on the slopes, and pretty much hand-picked my instructor, while promising to pass on my preferences. After I did a one-hour warm-up on the local blues and showed up for the lesson itself, I learned that I had been the only one in my skiing ability bracket to sign up - thus, my group lesson abruptly turned into a private lesson for basically one-third the cost. The instructor was also a grand old lady who was the best the mountain had to offer - a Level 3 ski instructor.

As if that weren't quite enough, Powder Mountain offers a snowcat ride up to their higher ridges for $15. Just two days previously, Ed and Eric had been all over that thought - they had seriously talked about nothing else for five minutes straight on the chair lifts while craning their heads to eye the backcountry which the snowcat serviced. We had discussed taking it for days, but due to their exhaustion and our winnowing number of available ski days, had given up on the idea. But now, the instructor offered to take me there, and so I gladly forked over the money - still having paid far less altogether than if I had purchased a half day lift ticket and a private lesson.

But wait, it gets better!

After some assessment runs and drills - in the middle of which another instructor-in-training showed up to join us (strange to now have nearly a surfeit of teachers!) - they took me over to the waiting area for the snowcat:

Underneath the Lightning Ridge sign was a very prominent sign declaring that the avalanche danger that day was "moderate". Honestly, I had never before ventured anywhere in which I had to worry about avalanches, and so I had never paid much thought to how one judges whether an area is at risk of an avalanche or how one should prepare for such dangers (there not being much one can do during it) - but the sign does a good job of letting me know that I should probably start reading up on all that in preparation for next season. I'm never going to be as adventurous as those people that get printed up in ski magazines, but if this season's trend continues, I may very well be wandering into such territory in the future; albeit, probably more accidentally than intentionally.

The instructor had timed it just about perfectly - it was only a minute later when the snowcat trundled up. It was surprisingly small - and as one can see in the above picture, there were already quite a few people waiting around. The driver declared that he only had room for sixteen, and there was a nervous moment when we (my two instructors and me) were trying to figure out if we could make it on - but my main instructor was a gem, and she asked the driver if he could try and squeeze us in.

Everyone at Powder Mountain was so great - the driver was more than agreeable in helping us out, and said that if one of us was willing to squeeze in the back without a seat, then the other two could sit in the front cab with him and then everyone could go up on this ride. Feeling bad, I offered to go in back, but my main instructor immediately took herself into the back cab, leaving the front for me and the assistant instructor.

Thus, after we had thrown our equipment into the box on the side of the snowcat (my twin tips wouldn't fit on the rack in the rear) we clambered over the treads themselves to take a seat with the driver.

There I am! Yes, I'm looking pretty happy, particularly when I twisted around to look behind me and saw the poor people in back packed into the box like so many sardines:

Of course, I took shameless advantage of my vantage point to take gobs and gobs of photos. Here, some people eschewed the snowcat to simply hike up the trail under their own power. While the distance was relatively short (the ride only felt lengthy because the snowcat is pretty slow), still, we were faster than the hikers - I couldn't imagine hoofing it on my own two legs. I would pay the $15 any day.

It was kind of amusing - the driver commented mock worriedly about his beavertail while passing them. It turns out there is a dragging flap attached to the rear of the snowcat, which I guess helps smooth out whatever the machine kicks up, and it does indeed stick out a bit on either side of the rear. I had this image in my head of us passing and sweeping all these hikers off their feet like so many bowling pins.

Some more pretty pictures. The snow was definitely turning crusty in places, as one can see above (actually, I like how the contrail in the sky echoes the lines at the bottom of the pic - like comet tails), but I had no doubt that I would be led to whatever good stuff still remained tucked away in the mountain folds.

Next post: the scenery itself!

2011 Utah Ski: Day 4.0

I was originally going to leave this post for tomorrow, but then 1) my mom made some noodles for herself and then offered me some of the leftovers, 2) this necessitated that I go brush my teeth again, and 3) I suddenly found myself with a lap-full of kitty.

 

Thus, I did not feel a huge incentive to go right to sleep. Maybe after another half hour or so. And some judicious petting.

So, on this fourth day, we decided to finally try the other local mountain, Snowbasin. It had been described to us by the locals as having pleasant groomed runs and being more popular with the tourists than Powder Mountain - boy, did they peg it. The guys had a tougher time finding good backcountry runs, though Tracy had her pick of routes down - attendance, however, was thankfully at a minimum, since though it reminded me a bit of Heavenly at Tahoe, we got nowhere near the crowds and lines that even the smallest resort at Tahoe gets. 

It turns out that Snowbasin was one of the locations of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah - a fact which we used mercilessly to get Eric to accompany us (the poor guy was really feeling his cold by this point, and only ended up joining us for a half day before he had to retire to the lodge) - and it showed. The others were making endless fun of the extravagance of their bathroom and lodge decor - though I had no problems with using upgraded facilities, I admit that it did seem a little disjointed to have the women's bathroom boast granite countertops and individual bathroom "rooms" (as opposed to traditional "stalls") when there weren't that many express lifts that I recall.

I don't think we had as good a time here as at Powder Mountain, though it wasn't entirely Snowbasin's fault.

• The others were even more tired this day than the previous day - nobody was really taking full advantage of their tickets.
• Snowbasin reputedly got scraped by winds the previous day - snow had crusted over, been blown into drifts, etc. It didn't help that fog had pretty much entrapped the entire upper half of the mountain for half the day, forcing us to stay at lower altitudes for most of the time.
• I think I flat out didn't enjoy the runs as much. But I am willing to concede that the less-than-stellar snow conditions themselves may have contributed to this feeling (after we were completely spoiled by the past three days at Powder Mountain), as well as the strange layout of the slopes themselves. The runs are not as clearly delineated as I'm used to - which necessitated a lot of stops as I tried to figure out where to go next or even if I'm still on a run as opposed to having just wandered off into backcountry by accident - and they don't seem to naturally lead into each other toward the lifts.

But, enough moaning - we still made a day of it! Here's a fun photo ... check out Tracy here looking rather relaxed against a neutral backdrop:

Until one pulls back a bit and finds that she's actually standing next to a snow-packed wall. Careful, don't sneeze too hard! Check out the white-out behind it - that was the sort of fog we had to contend with at the top! Here at least it was only in the background, but earlier, we were smack in the midst of it.

And here is the tragic pose promised in the previous post:

Poor Ed really looks like someone did him in!

The sky started clearing up a bit toward the end of the day - here we were stopped at the top of our last run of the day, and once again, much to my chagrin, Ed was the first to whip out his camera(phone) to take photos. Only belatedly did I notice the shifting sky and the light. (My only excuse was that I was too busy casing out the slope below, trying to judge whether I could take it all as a straight speed run to the lifts without turning or stopping. I had to do it farther down instead, but whoo it was a great way to wrap up the day! I was just sad I didn't think to ask Ed if I could carry his GPS at the time to see if I could beat the 54 mph speed score set the day before.)

Snowbasin had a bronze moose sculpture right in the middle of their plaza that had one hind leg lifted - when I took a picture of Tracy next to the moose, I commented that it looked like he was ready to kick someone. Tracy then offered to take a picture of me with the moose, so of course, I had to make it interesting. (Oddly enough, in the bronze cast, there was a small pile of "pellets" just before the moose's right hind hoof. Rather like droppings. I have no idea if that's what they were intended to be, but either way, their presence was rather strange - either for being there at all, or for their placement, as they were under the moose's hindquarters rather than behind them! They feed speculation.)



And, once again, what day would be complete without a dinner feast? I had suggested stew the day before, and so Tracy had boiled soup bones the previous night, then today we threw in a whole bunch of veggies. Ed once again grilled us up some meat, and I think we had some left-over pasta. The sugar on top (literally) were dozens of peanut butter cookies - they barely lasted the night! I think only a few remained by morning, and before we even had breakfast properly underway, even those vanished.