Utah - Adventuring In the Cottonwoods (w/ pix)

Spent 17 hours in a car driving (riding) from Northern Michigan for the SAE Clean Snowmobile Competition back to Buffalo to catch my flight. Got in at 4:30 AM, we left for my flight at 6:15.

Flew in yesterday, down in the city it was 62 degrees and bluebird. Definitely a lot less snow than in January.

We got some tickets for Snowbird yesterday and headed there today. The visibility was HORRIBLE, to the point where you could barely see 10 feet in front of you. We stuck to the easier aspects of the mountain because we wanted to stay on stuff my dad could ski and not have horrible consequences if you couldn't see.

Some places had decent visibility, so we ran some bumps and looked for good snow. Not a whole lot of success though.
The warm weather made everything really crusty. Some aspects worse than others.

We got probably 3 inches of snow in spots today, but it was REALLY heavy stuff. Once it got packed in it was getting pretty difficult to ski.

Not skiing as much this winter (going from ~60 days last winter to ~25 days this season) is really taking a toll on me. Either that or the old age. Turning 19 is ROUGH
OR it could be a diet of Subway, pizza, and McDonalds for an entire week. I think I ate more fast food in the past 7 days than I have in the past year.

Back to skiing...

Looks like we have good weather coming later this week. 13-24" between tomorrow night and Thursday. Unfortunately it's supposed to be 38` on Wednesday when we're getting the bulk of the snow.

We're planning on getting Alta, Solitude, and Brighton throughout the week.

We were planning on skiing all 5 days when we got here, but after today I don't know if I'd be able to make it.

Probably the coolest part about Snowbird is the 600' long tunnel that goes through the mountain into Mineral Basin.

Due to conditions/weather, not a whole lot of pictures from today. Either the forum or hotel internet isn't letting me upload any right now.

Of my three trips out west, they have all had the same trend. Day #1 was one to scrap. Low visibility and crusty. They've all gotten better throughout the week, so lets hope it goes well!

Another graybird day. We got to Solitude, saw how crusty it was, and decided today would be our day off. Some snow moving in tomorrow (1-3"), 8-12" tomorrow night, and 2-4" for the following day.

We went down to temple square today and toured around there a bit. It was... interesting.

Then we headed up to Antelope State park. It's amazing that I was hiking in a t-shirt on my ski vacation.

Few pics. None of Temple Square on this camera though, and the other uses a card that isn't compatible with my card reader.


Bison







Hoping the snow brings better conditions. Tomorrow may be spring skiing type stuff. 40` in the hills.

fujative wrote

Hoping the snow brings better conditions. Tomorrow may be spring skiing type stuff. 40` in the hills.

Diggin the "bison" pic.

Looks like the forecast has been revised upward since your post:



Today: Total daytime snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Tonight: New snow accumulation of 9 to 13 inches possible.

Thursday: New snow accumulation of 6 to 10 inches possible.

Thursday Night: New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Pow pics tomorrow night? What is your last day of skiing?

Got my fingers crossed for ya.

The pic looks like a couple of Mexicans running from boarder patrol..

Looks like conditions will rock tomorrow

I dunno about Alta, but I counted 9 flakes that came down at Solitude today.

Tonight: Snow. Some thunder is also possible. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

Thursday:  New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Looks like our 19-30" got bumped down to 10-16". I'll still take it.

We almost didn't go skiing again today. Weather said 20-25 mph winds with gusts up to 70 MPH. Very flat day, again.
We ended up going and getting on the slopes around 10am. Good choice.

It was pretty firm in the morning but got softer throughout the day. We took a run through Honeycomb Canyon, it was really crusty on one side, when we went back later it was a fair amount softer on the opposite.

On the other side, up high, we found some nice soft bumps. I'd say it was more of a heavy, high moisture content snow than spring snow which was down low.

We headed back down to the lower mountain and ran some decent spring bumps for the rest of the day then headed out for dinner.

We ate at the porcupine which is at the bottom of Big Cottonwood Canyon road, just across Wasatch Blvd. Really good food there.


Driving up the Canyon




Honeycomb Canyon








Storm clouds on the way out

Bump Run!

Ski the Gazuks lift that holds the best snow.

JasonWx wrote

The pic looks like a couple of Mexicans running from boarder patrol..

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck!

I was thinkin z same ting Gringo.