If you want to get over 50 days a season as a mostly weekend warrior you have to go when it's bad, good, and sometimes when people tell you that you shouldn't. Earlier in the week I wasn't feeling well and developed flu like symptoms, they didn't go away after a couple days and I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon. Strep throat was the diagnosis, he prescribed me an antibiiotic and told me to rest for the next 48 hours. I looked at him and said, "By 'rest' do you mean ski?" He didn't find it as funny as I did, but I knew the forecast and knew his suggestion was going to go unheeded.
I slept like crap last night and woke up around 4, I knew the road was closing from 5:30 to 7:30 and tried to get ahold of Travis to convince him we needed to go early. He didn't reply to a text until 6:15 so I was hoping the traffic wouldn't be that bad today. I picked him up at 7:10 and we headed towards the Little. We seemed to time it right and only hit a bit of traffic just as the road turned to the left heading into the canyon. We made it to the lot by 8:20 and to the lift corral by 8:45. The line up wasn't very big considering it snowed almost 30 inches in the last 48 hours and most terrain had been closed. I'm guessing a lot of people were stuck in traffic trying to get up the canyon.
I'd parked down at the cat crossover near Zoom in case the Peruvian side never got open. Our first run down from Zoom it became apparent today was going to be tasty, the snow was blower, and lots of it. We hit our usual spots and worked the tram when it joined the possibilities, Regulator/little cloud bowl/puckerbrush was the only way down and was skiing quite nicely. Finally on one of the tram laps the operator got a call as we neared top that they were opening the Peruvian side and the Cirque was open!
We beat feet out to Lower Cirque and skied one of our usual lines near Glen's. OMG, best run of the season by far, untouched bottomless goodness. The snow was perfect, you could make any turn from a hard envelope yourself in over the headedness to throttle up trenches. We continued on to the far left side of Andersons and Primrose to the Rothman Way. At the top of the short incline on Rothmans we came across the lower section of Mach Schnell with not a track on it, more glorious powder! We didn't get any action pics today as it was nice to feel the ski legs come around and rip full pitches of smooth powder.
Right about 1:30 a noticeable temp decrease happened, the air became a lot more crisp and I could feel my bases dragging. We called it a day at that point. It looks like Mineral was still sitting there and may be a treat for tomorrow, the Road to Provo is still waiting for a season first opening as well. It shouldn't be long before we have the entire mountain available to play on.
Fairly short early season conga line. The UPD officer was out of his vehicle and checking for 4x4, AWD, and tires.
The sun shone through here and there.
It snowed a bit during the morning, maybe an inch.
Get there early and park like a rock star.
Parking lot glasses of wine quickly became slushies.
