Powder Skiing in Utah’s Cottonwood
Canyons
A
4 day skiing weekend in
It’s
Tuesday midnight, I’m sitting in my Fargo apartment – just hours after skiing
at 11,000ft in Snowbird - remembering the whirlwind tour of the last 4 days,
reflecting on the most powder snow that I have seen in decades, on the busiest
skiing weekend in the US, on fabolous dinners in Salt Lake City, on a perfect
trip with conditions that even locals referred to as “lucked out on this one” …
but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Earlier
this year I had planned one more skiing trip to
A
few month ago, Chris Garty had come up to
Saturday, February 19,
2005
get
up really early to catch our plane.
We
take off in Fargo at 6:50am on time headed to Denver and after 1 hour layover
continuing on to Salt Lake City, where we land around 10:00am local time. We
get our rental car, swing by the skiing shop, pick up my skis and continue on
to the
We
get our day passes a little after 12:00pm noon, and don’t mind the weather
which is on-&-off snowing with some breaks in the clouds. Chris has never
seen really big mountains except for some snow-boarding he had done in
It
appears that for the fairly flat slopes at
They
have so much snow this year that in several spots they have to rope of the
slope under the lifts as the skiers could almost reach up and touch the skis
and boards of the people sitting in the lift chairs overhead – the regular
height of the skilift minus the thickness of the snow layer does not leave
enough safety margin!
Soon
it is 4:15pm and I literally catch the last chair at one lift which is closing
at that time. We could go on and do some night skiing with our ski pass until
9:00pm – but after 4 hours in the deep snow we are pretty tired already and
look forward to a shower and dinner. Plus who would want to knock themselves
out completely on the first day when there are three more to come?
On
the drive out the canyon there is a break in the clouds and the sun comes out unexpectedly.
While we are zeroing in on our hotel address using the Hertz Neverlost
GPS-based navigation system, we get a nice view of the mountains East of the
We
freshen up a bit at the hotel and drive downtown for dinner. All this almost
feels like routine after the trip exactly one year ago. We park in the downtown
area and go for a little walk while waiting for a table at Maccaroni Grill. The
fresh air and mountain workout without lunch has made us quite hungry and so we
feast as if there was no tomorrow. After two loafs of bread, salad, a seafood
sampler appetizer and the main pasta dish we are stuffed. When the waiter asks
whether we have any room left for desert, the words “Hell No!” slip from Chris’
mouth.
We
head back to the hotel and sit in the local hot tub to relax the muscles and
soak up some heat. After a quick shower we fall into bed and hope we’ll be
fresh again tomorrow!
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Today
we are headed to the Snowbird resort. We are not the only ones. The road into
the little Cottonwood canyon to the ski resorts of Snowbird and Alta is filled
to its max capacity and the traffic is slow moving, which reminds me somewhat
of the ski trips to French ski resorts. And in case you wondered: Yes, it was
snowing heavily. The snow plows were busy keeping the moderatly steep canyon
road in decent driving condition.
And
boy, was there some fresh and fluffy snow on the slopes! Everywhere you turned
there was deep, ungroomed snow. And it just kept coming down, not 1 hr or 2,
no, it snowed heavily all day! Snowboarding in Snowbird with powder snow.
We
didn’t mind the snowfall, as we just reveled in the fluffy and deep powder
conditions which are so rare and precious. Even when we sat on one of the many
quad lifts and the snow piled up while we rode up the lifts, that kept our
spirits high.
Chris
had NEVER snowboarded powder snow. He was exuberant like a kid in the candy
store. After every run had a new story to share, some new attempted trick and
often spectacular, but harmless wipe-outs. In fact, we captured several movies
with his Canon digital camera, which show the clouds of powder upon every turn.
At
one run we came down a long steep chute emptying out into a large bowl of super
deep snow. It was exhilerating! The powder was so deep and fluffy that you
could hardly see where you were going due to the “face shots” – bursting powder
blasting up in your face. Unbelievable – moments of shear joy. At the bottom of
that run I had to open my clothes and get rid of snow which had been blasted up
from my boots under my jacket and into my bib and T-Shirt!
Several
runs go through steep sections of forest and cliff areas where you would have
to carefully pick your lines and definitely ski very controlled so as to not
end up embracing a tree. The trees also gave the snow some contrast, which was
important due to the mostly poor visibility of constant snowfall and cloud
cover.
At
times you would hear other skiers nearby in the woods from their shouts of joy.
Many yodels were heard on the slopes throughout the rest of the day wherever we
turned. Whoever skied this day must have realized how special these conditions
are. Of course we wouldn’t stop until the last lift stopped and we returned to
the car around 4:30pm. In the few hours we had it parked it accumulated up to 4
inches of fresh snow.
The
drive back to the hotel was slow, and at one point in the lower parts of the
canyon the rain had caused a washing machine sized boulder to fall and slide
onto the road so all traffic had to carefully pass. The rain and grey landscape
of the lower valley and city was quite a contrast to the blending white of the
mountain. From our hotel room in Sandy South of
We
established what could best be described as the Ski – Eat – Sleep rhtyhm. After
a refreshing shower we again drove to
It seemed as if there was
no way these conditions could be topped, but then there was more snow to fall
all through the night. We were on the Northern end of a system which brought
massive rain and flooding with mudslides to
Monday, February 21, 2005
Just
outside of the busy breakfast room of the Comfort Suites hotel they had
conveniently displayed the current snow report:
Notice
the word “Powder” in every resort, and the first line showing Alta with 15” of
new snow in the last 24 hours. That’s more than 1 ft (near ½ m)! Today I wanted
to ski Alta. Since they don’t allow Snowboards in Alta we decided that Chris
would stay in Snowbird while I would go on to drive a few miles further up the
canyon and ski in the nearby resort of Alta. And indeed, on the first rides up
the lifts the sun was breaking through the clouds and revealed the massive
amounts of snow dumped everywhere.
Compared
to the day before, it was great to actually see where you were going and so one
could ride through the forming moguls more aggressively and with better style.
I now turned on my iPod. On the way up the lift I just relaxed, my eyes closed
and feeling the warmth of the sun in my face – sunscreen SPF 30 and lip stick
were applied repeatedly. Winter Wonderland.
On
the top of the hill I would start the right groove for the next run and then
pounded down through the trees and the deep, at some spots still untouched powder.
With the altitude of up to 10,500 ft I was panting heavily, skiing steep moguls
in such conditions is like sprinting: You go all out until your legs burn,
heart races and your lungs burst. Often I would arrive at the bottom of the
hill, get in line at the lift and realize how heavy I was breathing. After 3
hours of such relentless exercise I was actually releaved when the wait time at
the Sugarloaf quad lift would grow to about 20 mins per ride.
I
called Chris and left a message on his voice mail. Apparently they have
installed antennas to relay cell phone signals into the canyon. I had never
noticed people on the phones while skiing, but here phone calls on the lifts
and slopes were ubiquitous. Initially I thought about meeting at a point where
the two ski resorts touch: The following photo is taken after exiting the
(Alta) Sugarloaf lift, looking towards the Baldy Express lift (Snowbird) and
with the Snowbird Tram topping out in the left background.
Another
interesting observation were the frequent explosives set off by the ski patrol
as part of their avalanche control program. At times I could see the flash of
another explosive going off, followed by a massive boom several seconds later.
These blasts would trigger controlled avalanches in critical sections so that
those areas could later be opened up for general skiing. And of course, with
today President’s Day being the busiest skiing day of the season, there were
thousands of people on the slopes. There wasn’t a line through some steep cliff
or tree line too crazy as to not be skied by some local expert skiers. I was
stunned in the morning when I saw no less than a hundred skiers single-filing
across a just opened traverse to get their shot at a slope with yet untouched
powder. Needless to say that 1-2 hrs later there was hardly any more untouched
spot on the mountain.
Except
for one section called the ‘Castle’ under the
I
did another short traverse which was less strenuous and did not require any
wait time. It offered a
It
was getting late in the afternoon, and I was getting really tired. Shortly
before 4:00pm I turned to the last descent of the day down to Alta. The moguls
were not fun anymore, I was just too tired. But the views were still
impressive.
After
I got to the car and changed out of the ski cloths the phone rang. Chris called
to coordinate when and where I would pick him up on the way back. It took a
while to get there as a few hundred, well perhaps a few thousand, cars all
tried to get out of the canyon. But Chris and I were too busy and excited
sharing stories about where we had skied, just how perfect the conditions had
been all day and who we had met on the lifts or skied with.
Before
we knew we were back at the hotel and doing the daily hot tub, shower, check
email, and get ready for dinner routine. This night we went to Baci’s, an
Italian restaurant which claims to be the gold standard for Italian dining in
We
were just happy that everything had worked out so well and the skiing
conditions had been perfect. What else can you ask for?
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
We
get up early and pack our bags to check out of the hotel. We decide to go to
Snowbird once again, as it is just much better than Solitude. At 9:00am we
stand at 11,000 ft on top of the Snowbird Tram ready for another 5 hours of
skiing.
The
weather is about to switch back to more snowfall, but for now we still have a
few hours of mixed sun & clouds and good visibility.
We
come back to the long slope we had skied on Sunday which offers a pretty
breath-taking view from the top. Another skier just dropped in to my left a
split-second before I pushed the button for this next photo. Chris also shot a
short movie of me going down this same couloir minutes later.
On
and off we had sun and cloud cover. In the sunny breaks we would have great
views of the surrounding mountains.
There
were so many different slopes to be explored that I felt at times like a
sight-seeing tourist exploring a city and looking at a map asking the question
‘Where to go next?’. Since Chris had been snowboarding here all day yesterday
with good visibility I gladly followed his lead down various routes. We would
alternate taking movies or just capturing the exciting scenery with our photo
cameras.
Of
course every good time comes to an end at some point, and so it was for our skiing
trip at around 2:00pm. We went down to the parking lot, drove out to the city,
returned my rented ski gear, packed our bags and suitcase, returned the rental
car and checked in for the flight home. Everything worked out as planned, and I
even got to take a self-timed picture at the same spot in the
As
you can tell from the smiles on our face and the red cheeks we had had enough
sun and powder the last couple of days to fill us with sweet memories for a
long time to come. I am perfectly happy with this repeat trip from one year
before. After writing this trip report at 2:00am at night I can still smell the
snow and feel the rocking motion of slicing through powder moguls... And after
seeing the high mountains and experiencing the greatest snow on Earth, I think
it is safe to say that Chris is also hooked J Snowboarding on the bunny hills near