Shaking the Snowglobe

One day wiser, our house shifted our morning up by twenty minutes to avoid seemingly forty extra minutes of traffic through the valley pass into the mountain. We also opted to go to Snowbird instead of Alta, where we heard the runs were a little steeper and terrain more exciting. The morning was smooth and easy, Alex and I grabbed the last parking spot in the lot immediately adjacent one of the Snowbird lodges. We knew the day was blessed when a tailgating local had us roll down our window to ask who we were rooting for, Alex responded “Niner gang baby!”, and said local threw two Coors lights into our laps.

Alex and I took the lift up to a gorgeous open bowl on the West aspect of the mountain. The sun rising on the other side, combined with some wind at the top, was causing snow on the summit’s ridge to kick up and rise into the air. As the lift reached the summit we stared, jaw dropped, into the basin on the other side that was already experiencing a sun filled afternoon compared to the darker early morning where we hopped on the lift. We decided to ski down into the basin and enjoy the sunshine, absolutely loving the soft chutes and turns. I managed to take two hard falls on my butt while standing pretty much still on a flat cat track, much to Alex’s enjoyment. Maybe I had gotten too used to the fluffy powder! We skied the Mineral Basin lift until everyone else got the same idea and the line became massive. We sent it back up to the dark side of the mountain, sweating after twenty minutes of baking in the sun.

Little Cloud lift was my favorite part of the day. The snow truly was cloud like, you knew there was solidity to hold you up but charging through the piles of powder felt like soft air. I think that is the set of runs I will always remember when people bring up the legendary Utah snow. The snow is so captivating that any lift conversation with a stranger inevitably turns to, “Wow isn’t this snow just so soft?”, said a hundred different ways.

We ate lunch at Summit Restaurant at the best seat in the house (Alex and I were told that our patience deserved its reward, vultures circled every table with crumb filled plates asking patrons if they were on their way out). A few turns in to our post lunch runs, Alex and I could see in each other eyes that we were nearly running on empty (I realized this was my tenth day skiing in a row). We mapped out our descent back to the car. We lost each other briefly as we traversed back to the starting point through a dense forest run, but thankfully reunited at the base with a high five and a smile – we were spent. A plan of returning Alex’s rentals, heading to Whole Foods to buy some chimichuri ingredients, and hitting the hot tub came together quickly.

A few hours later we were cheersing to a fantastic weekend with some new friends over steak, lemon potatoes, a Greek salad, and some brownies for desert. We caught the most exciting part of the Super Bowl, I will always remember Christian Mccaffery driving the ball to the red zone for the 49ers single handedly, only to have his team not convert.

Alex and I are now enjoying some breakfast burritos at Salt Lake Roasting Co (thank you Alex for the recommendation) and are poised to venture South to Moab and Arches National Park while listening to No Country for Old Men.