Ski Trip Report: Weekend at the 'Bird

I just got back to San Diego after spending the weekend skiing at the Bird (Snowbird). I met my buddy Carl (from LA) and his buddy Ross (NYC) there. After spending 10 hours driving to Mammoth last weekend, we decided to that it makes more sense just to fly to Salt Lake. Its a little bit more expensive. But the skiing is better and the hassle is a lot less. We were treated to two bluebirds. For those of you not familiar with the skier lingo, that means beautiful blue skies. The skiing was good. They advertised ~120" total snowfall and a 56" base. Despite this, the cover was thin on most of the mountain (as should be expected of early season conditions). When I look at the condition of my bases after the second day, I kick myself because I decided against bring my rock skis. Afterwards talking with one of the locals, we heard that they don't break out their good skis at either Alta or Snowbird until there's at least a 100" base.

As I said in my previous post, Saturday was supposed to be the first day with Mineral Basin open. I think they actually opened it Friday since it was pretty tracked up by the time we got there Saturday morning. The best snow in Mineral Basin was on Double Down and Chamonix Chutes in between the Mineral Basin Express and the Baldy Express.

We spent the entire second half of the day skiing the Gad 2 chairlift on the right side of the mountain. The snow was much dryer. Due to being out of the sun most of the time, it hadn't been exposed to the thaw/freeze cycles like the rest of the mountain. In particular, the chutes in Black Forest, Organ Grinder, and S.H. were great. They're steep, narrow, and the cover was better than the rest of the mountain. The highlight of the afternoon was Carl and I getting cat-called by some girls on the lift. That was a first for the both of us! Too bad they couldn't see us taking some great diggers the following run!

The downside to the day was my first run. After getting my bindings mounted a few weeks ago, I had never upped my DIN setting. So 10 turns into the first run, I hit a bump and came out of both skis. I lost everything...skis, poles, hat, goggles, and even my glasses. It was a beauty. Somewhere in there I hit my left thumb. I thought it was just a jam at first. I skied (and fell) on it the rest of the day. When I got back to the lodge that evening and took off my glove, I found that it was swollen and black and blue. I ended up going to the Alta Clinic Sunday morning. It ended up being broken. But Doctor Ken Libre did a great job and made me a cast that could go over my glove so I could still ski on it. So the weekend continued. When I think back to the whole DIN setting issue, it makes me mad. The ski shops try to be conservative and set it low. But in doing so, they expose us to easily avoidable injuries that take place when the bindings release for seemingly no reason. So we are stuck with adjusting them progressively tighter using only trial and error.

We stayed at the Alta Peruvian Lodge. That's my favorite up there. It was the first time Carl and Ross had ever been they became instant fans. Everything's great about the Peruvian. One, its a nice hotel that has a cheap option. There's a bunkroom for everyone who doesn't want to cough up the big bucks. Second, the food is awesome. The breakfast buffet in the morning is to die for...omelettes, French toast, oatmeal, fresh fruit etc. Normally, they have a menu at night. But on Saturdays they have a buffet. We stuffed ourselves. I went up for two helpings and fyi...they do allow seconds on desert. If they ever offer the oatmeal cookie ice cream sandwich, go for it. It’s awesome! But really the best thing about the hotel is the people. Its a place where people go who love skiing. It does have a bar. But its not posh. You go there to drink beer and talk about the day's skiing. The people who go there are repeat customers. On Saturday we ate dinner with Mark, an old dude in his 70's who's been going there for 40 years. He's just one of many. I hope to be able to sit there when I'm in my 70's and tell some young kids what skiing was like 40 years ago.

On Sunday, I missed the first half of the morning getting my thumb checked out. But at 11:15am, I got a text message from Carl: J'ai trouve la poudre! For those of you who don't speak French, it means I've found the powder! I soon met up with Carl at the Gad 2 lift. We found some untracked snow in between Election and Bassackwards. The powder was boot deep, but it was a bit flat and the pitches were too short. We soon spotted tracks opening up under Road to Provo. After 2 runs off the Gad 2 lift, we headed up the Little Cloud lift and spent the rest of the day on Shireen, Mark Malu Fork, and Last Choice. Those were my first real powder turns this year. If you were over there, you would have heard me yelling up a storm. The powder was a bit wind blown and crusty in areas, but it was still powder. The only downside was the traverse out to it. Saying that it was rocky would be an understatement. Each time going out, I could hear that grinding noise that makes you shudder. It felt like a part of me was dying. But like addicts, Carl and I had tasted the powder and couldn't restrain ourselves from coming back for more. After 2 hours over there, we headed down for lunch. We saw that we both had core shots along our edges and rather than risk destroying our skis, we decided to call it a day. But the POW POW was definitely worth it!