On to Wyoming - Some thoughts on the last couple of days

Today Ray and Anita finished their segment of the Adventure. We packed up and checked out of our lesser condo in Eden (west of Ogden), UT and dropped them off at the SLC airport for their return to Victoria, BC, then Dan and I headed for Grand Targhee, WY.

Ray and Anita were excellent adventurers, especially challenging because they had to fill in for the still-recovering Dan. R, A, and I skied five consecutive days, at Park City (sunny), Alta (snowy), Canyons (powder snowy), Snowbasin (powder snowy), and Powder Mtn (powder cloudy). Anita was great at navigating us around the large and new-to-us ski areas. It seems that Anita and I have a similar eye for the path we pick to ski down, because she and I often found ourselves either right ahead of, right behind, or right beside each other as we flew down the mountains. She was a little smarter, though, about not skiing thru bushes and the real close trees. Ray, on the other hand, was everywhere! Anita capped the week by buying the second pair of skies she rented for a great low price. She even got the store to fix for free the big holes we dug in the bottoms when we skied across that road at PM (it was a near total white-out on the top of the “Powder Country” and we really weren’t that far out of bounds). Dan managed a few runs at PC and SB and the full morning at PM. It’s been snowing all day here at GT and will snow all night. He hopes to be ready for the 9AM opening for the first powder runs.

Random Thoughts

Powder Mountain is an upside-down ski area. The base area is near the top and we ski down to the lifts. The best part of PM is called Powder Country. It starts at the second highest peak and drops thru about 2,000 ft of great powder to a road below the base area. Getting back to the top required three lifts. The first is a 1985 four-wheel drive School Bus Lift that picked us up from the roadside and brought us up 900 vertical feet to the base area. Then we skied down to a chair lift that took us to another peak, from which we skied down (great run) to another chairlift that took us to the top of the higher peak. Powder Country is the back side of that peak and is entered thru a gate. That day, the avalanche danger was considered only “moderate”. We skied it three times. The other cool part of PM is the Snowcat Lift. We met the snowcat at one of the high saddle ridges and, for $10, we grabbed onto one of two ropes stretched behind the cat and a guy towed (six of) us up to the highest peak for an amazing 2,000+ ft run down thru trees and untracked powder. The base lodge at PM is 1960s rustic. Note to Cade: Stop making so much fun of PM. Have you ever even been there? PM is the kind of mountain you would really like! Lots of powder, not too steep grade, very-not fancy accommodations, funky lifts, and best of all, cheap tickets.

Snowbasin has the best restrooms of any ski area, probably in the world. They’re wood-paneled and plush carpeted with granite vanities. The air has a slight scent of incense. The stalls are small rooms with wood paneled doors. The fixtures are top quality and the exposed plumbing appears to be gold plated. The hand towels are the best quality and plentiful. And for James: they make maximum use of infra-red technology (one can enter, use, and leave them without touching anything!). SB hosted part of the 2002 Olympics, so I guess they wanted to impress the foreigners with U.S. bathroom opulence.

The skiing was great, too. We started with a reported four inches, but where we go, it was more than that. Plus, it snowed all day. The visibility was really low, totally in clouds, but we didn’t mind - you can always see in the trees. We skied the eastern side of every canyon, thru the spruce trees, especially the farthest-away, eastern boundary of the area. We had the place to ourselves out there. We got to make our own trails there - there were few or no other tracks. The visibility on the cleared trails was bad - white air, white snow, unpredictable surface, other skiers. We only crossed them to find more trees.

The last week has been great for me. I got to hang out with and ski with Ray and Anita all week. I got to ski and hang out with Cade again at Alta and even better, Carol whom I haven’t seen for years. And the skiing - so good! In the powder I love to put my feet right together (instead of the downhill ski a little behind) and put the same weight on both skis (instead of mostly on the downhill ski), then lean back on the tails of my skies a little, head straight down, and steer thru the spruce and aspen trees by just twisting my hips. In the powder, our skis are totally silent. In the step parts, I love drop turns. We drop ten feet or more between whatever hazards and land, turning in the deep snow thru the fall line, then dropping again, then repeating as long as we can. It’s like controlled free fall.

And I love my helmet and goggles. They make me invincible. The silence of the powder is accentuated by the thwack sound of small branches as they’re deflected by my helmet and goggles. I love the snap sound of bigger branches being deflected by my ski poles held out in front when necessary. And I love the quiet brush sound of spruce bows brushing by my parka. My helmet has earphones in the ear muffs and a jack to connect to my iPod. At Snowbasin, I listened to a classical music playlist all day. Imagine powder runs accompanied by Beethoven’s Ninth and Handel’s trumpet concertos! Yesterday at Powder Mountain, I listened to a more typical playlist - that one a mix of 1990s and 2000s rock played by female artists - I call it Girl Rock.

Tonight at Grand Targhee, we’re in an on-slope, 1-1/2 bedroom efficiency, only 50yards from the lifts. We have good internet service, but no cell phone signals. It snowed all day and may snow all night and into tomorrow (Monday, I think). That should add over a foot of new snow. It may be sunny Tuesday for our second day here. Then we move to the other side of the Grand Tetons to Jackson Hole. Our Adventure is now fifteen days in and I’ve skied twelve days at ten different ski areas.

Becky & Sara,

Remember the Spud?