skiincy

ah! Wolf Creek is one of my favorite places. The times I've been there - they severely under reported and was surprised with christmas day powder a few years back. ❤️

I have a new 2021 goal. Let's try to take some lifestyle photos actually at Blue Mountain and convince them to swap out the stock photos. Get camera ready, guys.

From Saturday to Sundy, we got another 1-2” of snow. I heard that Big Cottonwood Canyon like Solitude and Brighton would be good. But ...since I only have a week or so left in Utah, I kind of wanted to explore Deer Valley more. In the morning, I saw that traffic into BCC was slow, so I headed towards 80 into Deer Valley instead. So happy I did because Playing on Bald Mountain, especially near Mayflower lift was awesome, and The Big Cottonwood Canyon shut down from a major accident. Here is a video of it. It looks wild. I zigzagged around Deer Mountain and somehow I ended up on Lower Bald Mountain. Thought the gondola was cool. It’s so fascinating to see the different types of lifts. This was the view from Jordanelle. I'm pretty sure this is the Jordanelle Reservoir, which is a Utah State Park. After some zigzagging, eventually made it the Upper Bald Mountain. When you head towards the Mayflower Lift, it got really foggy and there were signs about double black only. “Nevertheless, [I] persisted.” My favorite spots were Perservance Bowl and Mayflower Bowl. Since the visibility was low and dizzying, I headed for the trees. And, that folks is where I fell in love with the area between Stein’s Way & Edgar Allen. Literally, there was no one was on Bald Mountain. There were lines at the other lifts - lots of families and the typical DV personalities like Skiier Barbie. There’s one man in this picture but you can see all of the lift chairs are empty. I skied about 20k vert then I took @AtomicSkier recommendation to check out the St Regis lyfe. The funicular was so smooth! The atmosphere was classy and beautiful, as expected from Deer Valley. Some yurts were set up for groups I ordered the Lady Boss and a soup, and soaked up the scenery. Great day. Lots of fun. Wally is fully embodying how I feel right about now.

Like they couldn’t find any more realistic stock photos? Looks like they got it from shutter stock https://image.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-little-boy-mom-mountain-600w-255248125.jpg maybe they should add this one too, or this one. Totally realistic. Hopefully they’ll write a trip report using all stock photos from this fictional duo at blue mountain

@GrilledSteezeSandwichheres a better version of your pic

Same! I get it. Today the visibility was so low.. then like you kinda see eye floaters because everything is white & swirling and then it makes me dizzy. I tried to focus on the trees where the clouds weren’t hanging as much.

I hope this is your new tinder profile pic. Looks like you’re in the Macklemore thrift shop music video.

😐

(This is the second PASR acronym I had to google this weekend.) Oops. I should have publicly extended an invite. I have my airbnb until January 31st at least. There's a small sofa, an air mattress, and an extra size twin size mattress if anyone wants to visit in the next week.

Utah was calling for an epic powder day. Maybe my snow dance worked? (I have terrible dancing skillz btw) I heard stories about closing Cottonwood Canyon closing and people leaving at 5am. @GSSucks told me so. The earliest I could drop off the dog was at 7am but when I checked traffic - it looked quite congested. I knew the die hard powder chasers were already lining up for first chairs hours in advance of the 14" dump. So, I decided to wait it out. But, I still got stuck in traffic. Lesson 1: Drop the dog off the night before to board or find an alternative sitter on rover. Lesson 2: Don't wait it out. Get there before the canyon closes. For me, time is just a construct. I'm late to almost everything in life. I rarely make firm plans. The clock-in to work an exact time type of job doesn't work for me but I'm not lazy. When my sister asks when I'm returning to Pennsylvania, I get the "how in the world do you not plan these type of things?" So. yeah. I'm late to a lot of things and usually just have rough plan. Oh, and I like to sleep 10+ hours. So, all of that combined ... Lesson 3: For powder days, you don't need friends to ski with. But, find someone to brew the coffee and play the pump up music as an alarm. So. I know I'm going to get flack for all of the eternity on PASR because of being so late to a powder day. I understand. lol. So, when I arrived at Snowbird, I headed to my usual "entry 2" and although I had a parking reservation, I couldn't find anywhere to park. I drove in circles, asked attendants, and they told me - "I'm sorry. I don't know." I was talking to an unnamed PASR guy on the phone at the time. He instructed me to abandon my vehicle & go running to the nearest skill hill because there are in fact no laws on powder days or when drinking claws. He was yelling meeeerder the perrrrder. (Note: do not take legal advice from someone who hangs out in parking lots.) Lesson 4: Just go park at Entry 4 by the fire station. See my epic photo shop skillz below. It's less walking to the lift. You can ski down Chickadee (the kids run) and it spits you out at the tram line. When you end the day, you can take Chips Face to OMG to Cliff Access, and it pops you out right by the lot. Here we go. I arrived at 9:45. Finally got parking at 10:30. Started waiting at 10:45. The wait was annoying but I had an obligation so it worked out anyway. (I mentor a high school student who is applying to summer programs and she has a deadline coming up.) Got on the tram around 12:15 and chatted with two ladies in their 70's, who seemed to bypass the line. They got 8 laps in so far because of the bypass line. They've been passholders since college in the 70's. Turns out they have the Seven Summits pass. You get first tracks starting at 7:45am + Eucalyptus steam room + other benefits. Honestly, it sounds lovely. They were on the wait list for years and they usually allow about 60 people on each year. They said it costs a few thousand dollars. These woman were badass grandmoms. https://www.snowbird.com/seven-summits/ When I got to the top, they recently opened Mineral Basin and you could hear echos of wooots. It was magical. This was heading down somewhere near Lupine Loop on one of my runs. But, when you got to the Mineral Basin and Baldy lift. This is what it looked like. You can hear the powder hoots in the beginning of this clip. So by 1pm, the lines started to die down and I played in Mineral Basin area. You could still find untouched lines. I mean, it was deep. Like, this deep. This was my favorite lines of the day.. you can see the speckles of 2 people on Path to Paradise. You drop in any of the unmarked black runs and were greeted with powder after more powder. Here's a view from the top of Path to Paradise. Eventually went to the Baldy lift because the lines were significantly shorter. The runs off of Baldy kind of remind me of Copper. Just so wiiiiiide open. (also <-- one of my favorite songs) In the pic below, the lines in the top left are Chamonix Bowl and the Chamonix Chutes to it's right. In the pic below, to the right is Alta's Sugarloaf lift. If you took it wide near the Ski Patrol Gully lines, you could still get untracked powder by the end of the day. It was an awesome day. Lots of woot'ing. Lots of heavy breathing and smiles. I don't think my legs would have been able to handle a 9-4pm powder day. It already hurts to walk up and down steps in the best type of way. 10/10 day.

I need a lifestyle photographer. Sweet pic.

I'm not going to muddy a Stowe thread with Utah trip reports. I have standards. Kind of.

I'm never going to live this one down. 🤣

Dannnng. I didn’t even have my limo waiting for me outside of prison with a hair stylist lined up, like Joe Exotic.

Can I ask for pardon from the PASR community? I just knew there was no way I was gonna get first chair. I had to drop my dog off at 7am but there was crazy congestion by then. So, I gave it some time to die down and left my place around 8am. Still sat in stand still traffic. for the first few hours of the day, only the front side was open and the lines were insane. not mad about it. Still was epic. or Ikonic.

Lines got better after 12. Totally right. @AtomicSkier best. Day. snowboarding at Loveland in 2008 is now demoted to my #2 day when I got off the tram, they just opened miner basin and it was the most magical moment of my life. I can only attribute It to luck and good karma. knee deep to waist deep. Fresh tracks. line at mineral basin became crazy too but baldy lift was quick and a great time. I’ll write something longer later tonight

Did not get 1st chair. Lessons learned.. had to park over in lot 4. And this was Peruvian. The line wrapped around into the courtyard plaza .. Arrived at 9:45. Finally got parking at 10:30. Started waiting at 10:45. Still waiting in line at 12:10pm .....

Sure is whamboozled!! Over a foot of new snow. Had a parking reservation but they overbooked parking and there’s no room. Lines are wild.

Generally, he's decent at skiing especially for a puppy, but he has a cut on his paw that needs to heal. So, he stayed in the car. The website says no dogs but I saw 2 on the slopes. There's no one really patrolling.

It still hasn’t snowed (yet), so after work last night, I went for a ski tour up Park City again. Hoping to do it 1-2 more times before I leave on Jan 31. instead of walking in by the ice skating rink & starting at Pig Pen Saloon, I parked by First Time Lift. I was one of the first cars but about 10-15 others cars pulled in by 6. I showed up around 5:45 ... chatted with people in the lot and let Wally run around in the snow. There was a good amount of people going up. I thought, oh look - Park City left the lights on for us. But nope. The trail to go up is to the right of the lights. Last time, I went up Treasure Hallow (blue). This time, I followed the crowd up Homerun. It was about 1/4 mile longer. (2.25 vs 2 miles up) My average pace was slightly faster but holy cow - there are so many fit people .. young & old .. in Utah. Still have lots of work to do. Since I went up Homerun, I came down Treasure Hallow. My Apple Watch accidentally stopped on the way down but this gives the general route. It was easy to keep the distance but you can see the crowd of people behind me in this pic.

So many typos. Please don’t judge 🙈

Check out Rio Grand near the Utah campus. You’ll find a lot of college students....

On Wednesday, I did a 1/2 day of skiing at Alta. I did some work but my work projects were on hold & waiting for someone else to complete things - so I popped over to Alta for about 3-4 hours and skied about 17k (although my Apple Watch/strava and Ilon tracker differs slightly) 🤷🏼‍♀️ As I was driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon, there were multiple helicopters. Last time I saw that many helicopters, my local target was being looted. Don’t know what was happening though. as I drove up and passed Hell’s Gate Condos (after snowbird), I got pulled over for speeding. I was asked if I was a lecture or ticket. So that was cool. So for anyone planning to visit Alta, be mindful of the cop that sits at the Hells Gate. Supposedly he does it all the time according to someone I chatted with at Alta. But FYI - we need more snow. this is coming off of the Collins Lift and heading to Sugarloaf lift and Devils Way run. It looks recently groomed. Few bumps. Packed powder. Great day to be out. This pic is going up Sugarloaf lift and looking at runs like The Glory Hole & Running Dog Nose on the right (I think... correct me if I’m wrong) It needs to be filled in more but that didn’t stop a skier on Wednesday. After a few runs on Collins and Sugarloaf, I headed over to Supreme. I LOVED the run Challenger but the end of Supreme gets quite flat. did a few runs on Sugarloaf. I was loving Amen & Extrovert. ❤️ popped over to Snowbird and was ehh. The runs off of Baldy lift were quite bald .. and wind swept. And finished my ski day with some runs off of Collins. like ABasin and Keystone has, I love the long top to bottom runs at Alta. I believe Collins is about 1,854 vertical feet. Hopefully I’ll be back to Alta/Snowbird on Saturday with a better story. Off to do a snow dance in hopes that it helps.

Ew dont cough 😷

@enjoralas- what’s your Colorado plan? I’ll be in the Denver area from feb 1 until I drive back to Philly. Hoping to ski Abasin if I can snag a reservation