Snowbird Powder

Dave Zook, one of the Alta Snowboard Team members, sent over this edit of the goods from early this week. Blower pow is a thing of the past for now at the Bird, but it is fun to watch the AST getting out ant getting after it again!

Thought I could pass you along an edit I just made of this last storm’s insanity. It’s POV shot in three days and with a few follow-film shots of my buddy John Scheffler. I found it to be the best two consecutive bird days of my season, capped off with a tour to Red Baldy on the third day (the last shot). I’m kicking myself because I know the cam is pointed a bit too low on some shots, which is my bad, but hopefully it conveys a little bit how how much damn fun it is around here when we get multiple feet of blower.

Thanks Dave!

The snow machine is finally getting cranked up at Alta and Snowbird with more snow coating the slopes last night. The soft snow is fun for jumping around in and it is awesome when it hits you in the face too.  I would say that the upper mountain picked up about 6″ or so of new snow with West Baldy and Tower 3 being the best snow I found today. Trams were once again only half full and parking was plentiful. Oh the joys of midweek powder days!

The conditions have taken a turn for the way better at Snowbird in the last few days. The weekend storm has added coverage and powder that make all kinds of new things possible. There has been a ton of avalanche activity and patrol has been cautious about opening up more terrain so far. Mineral did not open today by the time I headed out at 2:00, which was a little surprising to me. I guess there are still a lot of things moving out there.

The pow on Silver Fox was blow up into your face light and legit face shots were had by many today for the first time this season. The lower mountain is filling in nicely and still skiing super soft. The monster bumps of last week have not re-formed yet and I hope they don’t for a while.  There is some light snow forecast for the next 24-48 hours and another storm should be here by Friday. Gotta love it when the snow machine turns on!!!

Our patience finally paid off today and the powder arrived at Snowbird. Gad 2 was a super good as was Silver Fox and the rest of P-Gulch. We received about a foot of nice groppley costal snow that is just what the doctor ordered. The Tram didn’t get rocking until about 10:30, but it was walk ons for almost the whole day after that. I love weekday pow! The rocks were more covered and the landing were softer than they have been all year. I am so psyched that the season is finally here. More snow on the way!!!!

There were loads of powder turns and butters at Alta today! I think there were more people than I have ever seen pre-season at Alta. There were kids jibbing at the bottom of the hill, skiers and riders all over the Baldy Shoulder and a few people even tried their luck at Snowbird. The snow was super good overall, but it was still thin as hell… I would guess that there was about 12″-15″ of new and if you stayed on top of the old snow you could dodge most of the rocks.

It would be worth it to go up and get some in the next few days….. just bring your rock skis.

With snow on the way (Finally!) it seems like a good time to watch some benger season edits from last year. Eon Jarvis is one of the most passionate skiers I have ever know and this edit shows that he has still got it after all these years. Unfortunately he is going to be getting after it in Colorado this year. I guess the next season edit will be looking less powdery and less steep. That is just the way of Colorado…. Snowbird on the other hand will be as steep and snowy as ever! See you up there soon….

Since we have not gotten to ski pow in a whopping 2 weeks I am figuring that people are jonesing to see a little more face shot action. This edit was filmed and produced by the one and only Brant Moles. Brant has been skiing the big mountain since before most of us knew what a big mountain was, before fat skis if that helps clear thing up for you. 
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June 3rd, 2011 was one sweet spring day. Even though Summer is only 17 days away the skiing at Snowbird in still EPIC! I got to ski Pipeline today for the first time ever. The video sucked so I didn’t put it in the edit. The best part of the day was skiing Mineral with Charlie, Crazy Ray, ERic Fabbri and Becky Hall. We sacked up and hit the Hoop Gap today which we have been looking at for weeks. It is a crazy little air through a steel triangle created by a lift tower and a support beam. Tim Normand deserves the credit for discovering the Hoop Gap earlier this year. Good Times!!!

Getting up early usually sucks, but today it was not all that bad. Not being hungover helped a lot. I met my old buddy Jason France up at Alta at 6:55am and we got to hiking. The snow where we dropped in, Nipple to Hidden Chute, was fresh and strange. It was a super fun ride down, but it was a balancing act to not break through the weird layer that was under the top couple inches of cream pow. I got a ski under it in the last few feet of the runout to the rope tow and it did not work out well. Enjoy…

Patsy Marley was an easy woman to get with back in the day all you needed was some dough. To ski Patsy today a little moretakes more work. It was a long hard slog up Grizzly today to get to the goods. I had to break about 50% of the skin through a foot or so of the most Tahoe style damp pow we have seen in a while. The skiing down was prime. Again I focused on skiing fast and trending to the right to avoid getting balled up in a wet slide. It worked out well. Enjoy…