Snowbasin Jan 31 '15

Had a perfect Bluebird fun day at Snowbasin.  This time just with two co workers that are strong skiers.

It had snowed 5" a few days back plus another inch or do over night..  This is a big place but not as high as the Cottonwoods so we worked the numerous north facing shots.  It got warm so the bottom was spring like.  It was rocky in spots.

Best run of the day was when a local showed us the hike into a chute called Lone Tree.  Very steep and hop turn tight.  The local took the left chute leaving me to get in the right.  Pretty freaky when my slough was pushing past me.  It was a total rush to ski.  That is the chute in the photo below taking from Needles Lodge.



And at the top of it looking down on the lodge.  When you don't know what's over the drop it was a bowel tighting moment.



My coworkers getting theirs



No TR about Snowbasin is complete without saying how great the facilities are.  The lodges are like the nicest private country clubs and the customer service and food are world class.

Nice!!!

Looks great, it's on my list if I go in two weeks.

I know that slough feeling, I have experienced that at Tucks several times. Makes you wonder if you should really be there.

That chute looks gnarly coach.

PT

There is plenty of side country at SnowBasin that looked really tasty.  Bring your Avy gear and maybe you can hook up with a local.  The guy that showed us how to get to that chute was really nice to share the goods.  It was only a 10 min hike but I never would have found it without local knowledge.  I think that if my co workers had seen what we were going to ski from the other side they may not have done it.  We got up to the chute and they were like you are the pro. If you biff we are turning around.

I don't mind slough going past me but when it starts pushing you it's another matter which happened here

Nicely done, Coach. You have to learn to manage the slough as much as you can, it can definitely take you on a ride and it's a tough thing to master over here. When I ski tight couliours I almost always look back now and again to check myself, and I'll make a wide turn where I can before heading back over to the other side.

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And so on.

A wide turn really wasn't an option where the slough was pushing me as it was really tight with rocks sticking out

I tried riding up the wall but that only made the slough worse

Had to ride it out

My urge was to look over my shoulder but my training says to keep the upper body pointed down the hill

Lone Tree is a classic that I always look at, but don't have the skillz to try. Thanks for taking pix of it.

Impressive coach !!!!!   Way over my paygrade , but appreciate the skillz and stones u have for taking that puppy on ..

 looks pretty rad!

That is some hairy stuff. Well done.

How steep is that and happy that the snow was good enough to hold!  Man, takes some guts to do that.

I read somewhere that the steepest part is 50 degrees, about as steep as Rumor at skiers right - head wall, but no ice or bumps.

Sounds about right

If it was icy I would not have skied it

It was a little narrower than Empire

tighten's the sphincter for sure. had one of those in squaw. nice photo's

I had no idea what this looked like from the other side before skiing it.  I would have been cool with it but not sure my coworkers would have been.  To me it was  bowel tightening not knowing what was over the crux.

At the time we were riding up the Gondi with a local who said hey you guys want to ski something fun follow me.  Turns out it was apparently on of Snowbasin's premier chutes but I didn't know that at the time.

Coach Z wrote

Coach this is the balls over the top. I would have LOVED to watch you ski it. I bet you nailed it.

Most fun run of the season by a ton

My heart was pounding by the bottom