The preseason is dead! Long live the season!

Finally the preseason conditions that started as early as October 3rd and seemed endless are finally over! Just in time - as this IS the last day of the year. Talking about the last day of the year, I was today respecting an age long (OK few years long) tradition with some friends: The New Years Eve Wasatch BC Ski. This may sound like a major event – that’s because it is. Today it included six of us (when I say major I obviously don’t mean number of people showing up…).

One of the advantages of a “Considerable” avy risk forecast is that you get a place like Cardiac Ridge all to yourself. How often does that happen? Below is a picture featuring exclusively our lines:

These are only our Cardiac ridge lines; we got a lot more in, from south facing under the Pole Line to Ivory Flakes with an exit on Raynolds Flats. If you ever want to do a bi-canyonal, I strongly recommend parking at 6200 S and taking the ski bus. That's because at 6200 you get to ride up Little Cottonwood and down Big Cottonwood.
Now, back to our title theme, to show you that we are now truly in season: Below are two pictures taken today that definitely should be worth more than 2,000 words (click to enlarge)… Enjoy, and
Happy New Year!

The Canyons of Last Resort…

I don’t know how common this is but in the pre-season i.e. not enough snow, I skin a lot in resort in preparation for the season. Alta is an early candidate as they always seem to have at least some snow (late September - early October) until they open, often in mid to early November. A bit later, at least if you live in the Park City area, PCMR becomes an attractive candidate as they make tons of the artificial stuff, but of course of the three resorts here, they open first so then; no more skinning. Now, it’s time to migrate to Deer Valley and their Mount Baldy until they close in early December. The final stop is the Canyons; typically the last one to open. So being December 15 and all, I dragged myself up there today with my dog, Skadi, for a training round. I skinned up Silverado (see picture to the left) to the Lookout Cabin and when I was there, to my surprise, other than the Golden Eagle it seemed all the lifts were open! So there I was in the middle of resort action with my skins, my dog, looking like I am saving on lift tickets! The ski patrollers were staring, taking “amongst themselves” as it were but, I guess, too bewildered to do anything at all about it. The bonus is that I got to ski down Super Fury, in resort, with my dog…

I guess this means pre-season is now officially over and that is just fine with me. I already got 25 days of pre-season training and I am ready for the real stuff!

The picture below is of  Square Top, the Patrol Cabin, two Canyons workers, and my dog Skadi....

Proud moment

Today was a resort skiing day at PCMR. The real reason for spending the day at PCMR, in resort rather than in the backcountry today is that it was try-out day for the Park City Devo Team. After years of the PCMR Learn To Race (LTR) and then Farm Team, my son Max Askmo, 10 years old, decided to try out for the Devo team. This team has a lot of history as one of the best programs in the nation and has included kids such as Ted Ligetty. So for my son (and his parents), this was not a small thing. Max went in to this with the usual mix of excitement – anticipation – tension – anguish right up to the moment when the list of invited participants is posted on the wall. His name, by virtue of the alphabetical order, was the second entry on the list and I could see that he was visibly relieved! Indeed a proud moment. Below are the pictures taken just after the announcement when Max and his buddy, Aydon Lee, were savoring the moment at PCMR (click to enlarge):

The Whippet Likes Man Made

Today’s tour was supposed to be strictly a workout as we (me and Mike) left with no expectations whatsoever of any good skiing opportunities at all. So we took off to Deer Valley at Silverlake. We skinned up the service road to the top of Mount Baldy. We encountered a few ski patrollers giving us the thumbs up and a couple who told us that strictly speaking the mountain was closed. They were nice about it though and let us go on, I guess they are skiers too… The clincher on all this, is that with Deer Valley prepping for Saturday’s opening (which means this is the last workout at Silverlake for this season), the slopes were impeccably groomed and us being the only ones on them, we had some phenomenal and fast runs. To the left is a picture of the a snow cannon, Whippet and all and below is yours truly with Skadi on the whales (picture credits: Mike Florance).