February 26, 2008: Sunny day at Snowbird.

Ever since I arrived here 3 days ago, it has been cloudy and foggy. I couldn't complain really — I came here to ski powder, and powder it was. Still, I was wondering if I was going to spend a week here and never see the supposedly breathtaking vistas. Well, that today would be the day became clear when I woke up to this view from my room:

I took my camera, rented a pair of K2 Apache Outlaws, warmed up in Snowbird's Mineral Basin (a reasonable huge bowl — or you can say two — on the other side of the ridge), and went on to ski the rest of the day at Alta. Each of the three days I have skied here, I was thinking to myself, "I either have never had that much fun skiing, or I forgot when I did". So, yeah, that means yesterday was even better than the day before, and today was even better than yesterday. A pair of Apache Outlaws contributed heavily into that.

Soft snow and skiing it, for diletants by a diletant.

Last year in Switzerland Oleg and I were severely confused by whether it was our skis (deisgned to handle New England's hardpack) or the lack of skill that failed us in the many feet of pure Alpine powder. We also thought it might have been Mike who insisted on taking us to relatively steep slopes, whereas with our close to zero experience in powder, we could have probably benefited from a gentler pitch.

Well, here is the deal, in case other East Coast skiers get as confused as we were :-)

First, yes, it is totally possible to ski tons of soft snow in my Dynastar Contact 11s, 72 millimeters under the foot. The thing is, though, you do have to sit back, in order to keep the tips from getting too deep into the snow. I read and heard opposite opinions on whether or not this is true, and that resulted in a lot of confusion on my part. So, I experimented quite a bit with my fore-aft balance yesterday, and the only times when I could link an indefinite number of turns without a face plant, I clearly felt I was so far back that this just wouldn't have worked on hardpack. I might be full of it, but at this point I am also going to insist that no amount of speed is going to change this. Now, I guess it also depends on the surface area of the ski and the weight of the skier. My Contact 11s are 172 centimeters long, and I weigh 180 pounds. Perhaps, a hardpack ski with more surface area per pound of the skier's weight would let the skier avoid altering his fore-aft balance when moving from hardpack to powder.

Second, it's a lot more fun to ski powder in fat skis, or at least in the Apache Outlaws. I guess, it would be their surface area, relative softness and round tails that combine to make them easier to control in soft snow. That said, I can't really rationally explain that. It's just that I clicked into them, got on top of Mineral Basin, plunged into whatever number of diamonds slope, and they were turning wherever I wanted them to turn.

Third, Mike was right a year ago: there is little point in skiing gently-pitched slopes with feet (actually, that was meters) of untouched powder on them. Simply put, the snow slows you down, and you need some speed to make turns.

Fourth is the corollary of the third: it's A LOT easier to ski a steep slope covered with unpacked snow than it is to ski the same slope covered with hardpack, especially if that means ice, as it usually does in New England. A treeless 50-degree slope at Alta today was more forgiving than a 35-degree slope at Loon on an average Saturday afternoon.

Goggles and sun

I skied all day wearing goggles and helmet. I wasn't wearing a face mask. Nor did I think about the sunscreen. So, my nose and the lower part of my face are tanned. The upper part of my face is not. The line between the two is two large semi-circles. I look like a clown. Now I get it why some people wear regular sunglasses instead of ski goggles.

Alta.

I spent most of the day skiing Alta today. Well, before I say anything else, I want to say that in the end it's just a good ski area, with a good variety of terrain and some amazing views. Other than that, there is one thing about it that stands out, and it can be summed up in one of two ways: (1) it has a character, or, in the words of a Salt Lake high-schooler who I rode a lift with, (2) it's stuck in the dark ages. Well, the Ski Magazine did a good write-up on that earlier this season that I think anybody who's heading to Alta should read. If you don't, at least spend some time thinking what kind of a cult following a mountain has to have in the modern day to be able to ban snowboarders and still stay in business. I know of only four areas in the United States that do that (and I don't think there are many more), the other three being Taos, Deer Valley and Mad River Glen.

So...

Snowboarders

Alta calls itself a "skiers' mountain", which means they don't allow snowboarders. Beyond that being cool and enjoyable, though, you quickly realize one thing I started suspecting a couple years ago: if you take an average snowboarder, and put him on skis without taking his iPod away, his agressiveness-to-skill ratio will not decrease.

That said, when I got back to Snowbird, and immediately saw a snowboarder rolling into my way, I felt some sort of deep sadness, as though I just lost something fundamentally important. I guess I will be remembering Alta every time I see a snowboarder now.

Lifts

Snowbird spoiled me a little bit over the first couple days in the sense that in Snowbird, a lot of interesting terrain doesn't require a hike, and some doesn't even require a long traverse. Alta could as well proclaim itself a "hikers' mountain" in that quite a bit of its terrain is not lift-serviced. Most of the lifts are slow and low-capacity.

What needs to be understood, though, is that it also results in fresh powder staying untracked for longer than it does here at Snowbird.

Attitude

They do make a point about them being different. None of their lifts have a footrest. The beat-up cafe in Goldminer's Daughter has four kinds of hot sauces next to ketchup and mustard, in addition to things like "Thai Firecracker Wrap" on the menu. The sign next to the cafe entrance reads something to the effect of "whoever does something with these cups, if I catch you, I will ban you from Goldminer's Daughter for life". (I'm not sure what cups this was about.) Yeah, and one sixty-plus-year-old yells to another "nice jump, dude!" after the dude lands a three-footer...under the lift for everybody to see, of course.

Pictures

I snapped a total of 109 pictures today, and not a single one does any justice to the place. Well, try clicking on the pictures to get a higher resolution, as then the vastness of this place might become a little more guessable.

This is slightly less than a half of the Mineral Basin:

And this is about 10% of the view you are stunned with when you get out of the Peruvian Tunnel on a sunny day:

It takes time for all this powder to get tracked out (still Mineral Basin from Peruvian Tunnel):

A couple views of the Little Cottonwood Canyon, as seen from the ridge at 11,000 feet. Salt Lake City lies in the valley behind the canyon.

This, I think, is Mount Baldy, as seen from the Snowbird side:

Another view to the Mineral Basin side of the ridge:

Another snowfield, with a cliff, some clouds, and mountains on the backdrop:

That's, I believe, Mount Baldy, as seen from Alta (well, if it's not Mount Baldy, then it's something else, as seen from Alta):

The canyon, as seen from Alta's base. See that little cloud sticking out from the valley behind the mountains? In an hour it would cover most of Alta in a dense fog. Whatever is coming from the Pacific hits the Canyon, and dumps snow on it. That's how they get those 500 inches a year.

Another Alta view:

And this is that little cloud from two pictures above:

A view from the top of the Alta's Supreme lift:

Another couple views from the top of the Supreme lift:

A view of Alta from Snowbird/Alta connection:

A view of Snowbird and beyond from Snowbird/Alta connection:

And a couple more views from the same point. Then (fortunately) my camera ran out of battery.