Utah Update, might be long
June 9, 2006
24 posts
12 users
8k+ views
Well as some of you might know I am working at snowbird till may.
This place is fing huge, I dont think I will ever know every run here let alone the runs not on the trail map. Extremely steep everywhere, so steep trail rating are truly only for this resort. Big Emma ,a green, is steeper on top than extrovert at blue knob. the terrain you can ski is so vast, its almost unbelievaable to me being from the east, more specifically PA.
The snow right now is well variable, saturday I skied knee deep dry snow. but now we are frost freeze cycle that make worst ice than even Pa in the morning, till you get awesome corn and then slush in the afternoon.
to ski all that awesome snow I have new pair skis. 183 Volkl Gotamas, about the closest thing you can get to tank on snow. Awesome skis, skis crud and powder much better than the metron and workable on soft groomers. took alot to get use to for me being that they have 28 meter sidecut and huge waist, but with alittle work they are like Downhill race skis for powder. 40 plus mph is were they like is best but work at slower speed as long as you have something to bend them against.
Well I am tired feel free to ask questions,and crush call me back;).
How will you go back to HV after skiing Snobird!?
Thanks for the laugh in a good way. I remember the first time I ski out west (long time ago).
Now can you imagine the locals around Snowbird learned how to ski on the greens and blues that would put east coast greens and blues to shame, no? Other people's opinions may vary.
Feeling the crowd at the top, no?
Lot of terrain for you to choose, yes?
Deep dry pow pow can be addictive, yes?
Can you imagine hitting waist deep snow on dbl black? <- You gotta try it.
How do you like the lifts at Snowbird? Not much of a lift line, yes?
Keep in mind that the terrain at Snowbird are not quite the same as those in Colorado and around Lake Tahoe.
My friend warned me long time ago that I may not ski east coast as often I used to after I get a taste of skiing out west. By Golly, he was right!
hehe. Enjoy the 'bird while you can.
Hey I was hoping to hear from you.
Great. Glad you are having a blast. It will be tough skiing back at old HV.... Then again Ski sh*** or be Sh***. (Is the green showing through?)
Snowbird is hella fun but it is one steep mofo in places. It seems like if you veer anywhere off the moderate stuff it gets real steep real quick.
I assume that you get a free pass since you're an employee. Is that just good for the Bird? Do you at least get some type of break at Alta?
BTW, my favorite thing about Snowbird and Alta (especially Alta because they don't use double diamonds) is that some blacks (like upper Ballroom) are a pleasure to ski while others (like the death trail under the Supreme lift) present a great chance of meeting the grim reaper.
Got a nice taste of the thaw-freeze action at Alta on Sunday. We thought it might be good to start out rolling behind Collins to Glory Hole because it was getting most of the sun early on but it wasn't even close to softening up, even by 11. Still, the groomers were way soft and easy for bombing so you won't hear a single complaint from me. Two more weekends left at Alta and then I'll be frequenting the Bird all through May. I love it out here!
Quote:
Hey I was hoping to hear from you.
Great. Glad you are having a blast. It will be tough skiing back at old HV.... Then again Ski sh*** or be Sh***. (Is the green showing through?)
not sure I am coming back at all now, they couldnt pay me enough to leave a mountian like this.
We get one free pass to alta each week as a bird employee. I will ski there saturday and there is suppose to be storm too.
Also got to take a run with Steve Matz today, he has turned into a very good skier. Just passed his L3 skiing and is awesome off-piste. skied the cirque and did a huge backflip at the bottom.
Yes the green is showing though it has show though in all my ski buddies like i said I ALMOST fell bad calling them.
oh yeah BTW I meet Glenn Plake today even got my picture with him.
Quote:
oh yeah BTW I meet Glenn Plake today even got my picture with him.
Who is Glenn Plake???? Only kidding....Only kidding....
He's my favorite skier of all time!!!
Quote:
oh yeah BTW I meet Glenn Plake today even got my picture with him.
Post pic please. Hair up or down?
Quote:
not sure I am coming back at all now, they couldnt pay me enough to leave a mountian like this.
Josh, dude the 'Bird has got you now
. Ain't no cure, i quit it cold turkey, but i've gone back for more, i'm still riding my buzz from March crash coming soon though.
Quote:
... not sure I am coming back at all now, they couldnt pay me enough to leave a mountian like this...
... yeah, I know the feeling. Better watch it, skiing here could mess up your life, but you'll be happy and doomed. I figure I'll burn in Hell at some point, but it's not today; my boards felt good, the sun is out and it is warm and the bumps were awesome and my chick and I had a great time. Now I'll knock back a few and sit on my deck. Not too much money but we're rich in other ways. ;-)
Well I went to Alta today, and I must say I might actualy like it better then the bird. I will need a powder(well fresh snow it was kinda of heavy i guess)at the bird to compare.
I am not sure how much snow we got today up there but it seemed like a foot i really dont know. The first runs off the high traverse were freaking awesome. Didnt cross any tracks till my 4 th run. ON my 4th run I had my first and only real scare off the day. I dropped into some trees and had slough start right underneath me. I turned left and up the hill to let it pass, as it then hit a down skier below me. It for sure freacked me out, and was good indication on why alot of the terrain wasnt open today.
After a couple runs after that, crush shows up and the real fun begins. We proceeded to GS turn though the Crud, as we search out what little was left to found of untracked. We also skied tons of trees and got in some hariy area on purpose and not on purpose. The Highlights were..
Crush in supreme bowl dropping in to ski lenght width chute and straight lining out, which he owned BTW, but a couple turns later he got a unwanted face shot.
Me dropping me first rocks/small cliffs out west. The first one was about 6 feet(not really sure) , Crush was there, i clipped the rocks alitte bit. Came back to the same rock band after Crush left, and did with more speed and didnt hit any rocks and dropped pretty far down at least 2 of me down the hill. The moto of this story is that head high, quick become twice that when you are going fast.
All the crazy and weird traverse/sidesteps around the place, there are so many nooks and crannies there, its skis much bigger than posted acerage. If you willing to work fresh track can be had all day.
and last but not least, my new skis(183 Cm Volkl Gotamas) came into there own today. I ma getting more use to old school technique that thats required with them, and they just bulldoze though anything. Yeah they are good in powder, but in untracked snow almost anything is goog. Now in heavy wet crud that is a different story, these skis just surf though it as long as your on a-game and have the energy to bend them. BTW they are much stiff than my Metrons B5.
Well that is all folks, check back in couple day;).
bushWacky - hee hee hee that sure was fun, eh mate? Yeah see some of that old school comes through for *real* skiing sometimes ha ha. Glad you hit that jump again it had your name written on it! Yeah Alta is a great place hopefully we can hit it when the stuff closed that day is open. It was fun spankin' all those runs but you also reminded me of how much energy a early-20'somethinDude can exude (hey that rhymed!). But I like the way you wail! Props!
.. dude so we are getting hammered today or what?!?!?!??! I hope you got away from work a little and enjoyed ... me I am heading up to Little Cotton tomorrow ... maybe I'll see ya!!!!
I am not off till friday and saturday...but I got first tracks on Silver Fox, and Harper's Ferry today. Which may have been the best run in my entire life. Then I taught some 7-11 year old Level 4-5s powder skiing on upper emma and in some woods runs I think they had just has much fun falling in it as they had skiing in it. They had a blast.:)
Catch you this weekend hopefully for some spring skiing carving somewhere(Bird or Alta?).
Well its been awhile since I posted, here so alittle update.
Well today it snowed like 2 inches and we expect more overnight. And hte sking has been a mix of Boilerplate Ice, Edgeable fun hard pack, corn snow, slush, and the worst of them all Mank thick goup. Overall Corn seems to be most likely conditions.
Snowbird continues to exceed expectations, even with the Pervinia Gulch closed off there is still tons of terrain to ski on, with decent condition each day. I ma surpirsed more people dont come out in May to ski, the coverage is near 100 percent, and today riding the tram there was at most 8 people on it
![](/ubbthreads22/images/graemlins/blush.gif)
.
Plake!!! I took some runs with him the last time he was at t-line. What an incredible skier! Good conversationalist as well for the lengthy chair rides. That guy can ski some bumps. What's he sking on now? I think he used to be on something like 213cm k2s.
Glen was on 200 cm K2 straight skis but the is alot more than to say today....
Well with 6-8 inches of heavy fresh snow made for some nice fun turns down Little Cloud bowl today
http://www.snowbird.com/ski_board/photo.php?photo=318 but it all turned kinda of scary like around 11. Coming down an area of trees below Mark Malu bowl(40 degree pitch), the snow below ripped away...this was no sluff, this was a decent sized wet slide. Moving slow as they do, i just turned away and watch it slide on down, luckly noone else was around below(would of been unlucky if caught in it). this was only a sign off things to come.
With in the day despite numerous closures, there was 3 avalanche that hit opens marked runs. first being on big Emma...then one more on Emma and one more on lunch run. There were numerous off trail, sloughs and slides, but too foggy to know really how many.
the first one on Emma was skier triggered and came down from the area between Wilbere Bowl and Gad Chutes. the slide was about 30 yards wide, and the debris field was 50 yars long. Give me some time and will have picture for you all.
On a side note Volkl Gotamas ski avy debris pretty well;).
Cool pic of the debris field.
Are the rest of those your pics? If so it's very cool that you went to OU. Several kids from HS seem to end up there every year.
Quote:
Cool pic of the debris field.
Are the rest of those your pics? If so it's very cool that you went to OU. Several kids from HS seem to end up there every year.
umm thats my little sisters webshots, I sent it too here asking if she could posted it up for me cause I didnt have a way to do it in Utah.
Quote:
How will you go back to HV after skiing Snobird!?
I am not its really hard to pass up snowbird. payrate is double Hidden Valley, 5 times as much hours, 12,000 vertical feet on my "work" days, 4x that on my days off, better snow, better terrain, warmer weather, longer season, shorter commute to work/ski, cheaper gas, free Public transportion, discounted food(General Grits rocks),better tips, better lessons, Alta right next do and I will have a dual pass, smaller ski school than Hidden Valley(which probably surprise alot of people on here). Better skiers to push me(at Hidden Valley I was the better skier). skiing with "Maggots" everyday, I am living on my own, not with my parents. etc etc