Ski Trip Report: Back At The 'Bird

I skiied the 'Bird today. I had the honor of skiing with John "Red Man" Reif, a local legend. Red Man is a 54 year old professor of Nanoscience at Duke who calls the the bunkroom at the Alta Peruvian Lodge his second home and manages to average 50-60 days per year at Alta and Snowbird. He is a living library on the history and locals' stashes at Alta and Snowbird.

When we got to Snowbird, I got the unpleasant news that the Gad 2 Lift was broken. Apparently the bull wheel cracked 2 weeks ago and a new one is being manufactured in Canada. It will be several weeks until it will be open again.

Despite that bit of bad news, the day overall was excellent. We were treated to another bluebird. Temps were in the mid 40's. We started off skiing Mineral Basin, which was in the sun in the morning. Unfortunately it took the first 2 hours of the day for the snow to really soften up. So we were skiing on frozen crud and death cookies. We should have just stuck to the groomers. Around 11, we headed for the main ridge under the tram. Red Man swore me to an oath that I would never show anyone else his secret powder stashes. So sorry, all I can do is tell you the trails we went down. (Not that I have a chance of remembering where they are next time I come back since I was just trying to keep up with him as we were constantly ducking in and out of the trees and down chutes.) Almost every run we did off the ridge, we started off going down Great Scott. Its the 45 degree slope right under the tram with a bunch of people standing looking over the edge. The entry involves a ~5' drop in. The cover was a little spotty today. So you really had to pay attention to the rocks sticking out of the snow. Once you were in, the snow was absolutely fantastic. After skiing down the main part of Great Scott, we would then traverse over to the nose of the main ridge at Snowbird. From there, we took runs down the Wilbur Chutes, Lone Pine, and Dalton's Draw. They were all very excellent and uncrowded. The only issue was the entry which involved skiing over rocks. Luckily I only ended the day with one core shot. Somehow Snowbird just doesn't agree with my skis.

Red Man might be 54 years old. But I have to admit that he skis faster than me. I prefer taking lots of short agressive turns down the fall line. He generally just makes big fast GS turns through anything. We didn't stop for lunch and skiied together until 2 when he headed back to Alta. To be honest I was kind of glad that he left because my legs were just about out of gas and I would hate to admit that I had been beaten by a 54 year old.

When we got back to the Peruvian we were greeted with the news that Alta had opened up the Baldy chutes today. I was disappointed to hear that I had missed it because they look fantastic. I've never skiied them but plan on hitting them tomorrow.