I arrived at Snowbird early enough to catch the first (public) tram to the top of Hidden Peak. Mineral Basin didn’t open yesterday, so I figured its south- and southeast-facing runs would be loaded with powder snow because of the storm’s strong west-northwest winds.
I was right. The 19 inches of fresh powder on White Diamonds was some of the deepest I’ve ever skied.
Today was a short groomer day at Alta. I also experimented with my GoPro camera setup. I think I now have a setup that works. It provides a good point-of-view camera angle with minimal shaking. Now I just need to start skiing some more interesting terrain.
With that said, the following GoPro footage only features some easy terrain off the Sunnyside lift. The skiing footage isn’t too exciting, but it was a beautiful day. Enjoy!
A storm had dropped about a foot of snow on the Wasatch during the week. Plenty of work-dorks like me were anxious to get out there and ski the leftovers on this beautiful Saturday. There was some tracked powder in between the groomed runs, but today would mostly be a groomer day. And it was a great one.
One thing surprised me when I drove up to Alta this morning was the amount of people that were headed into the backcountry. I swear there were more cars parked at the usual trailheads for the touring routes than in the resort parking lots. The degree to which touring and backcountry skiing, in general, have become mainstream is definitely a new development since I last skied regularly (2008-ish).
I went skiing today for the first time in over a year. The sky was clear and the crowd was late arriving (likely due to the prior night’s New Year festivities). I didn’t stay long. I skied only about a half dozen runs. My legs were burning during each run, but it felt great to get back out there, finally.