Trying to escape the snow...

... But the snow is chasing us!

We had a last day in Utah before leaving to British Columbia to meet friends and continue our journey. The backcountry was awesome but it seems that the big storm cycle is over...


After spending 4-5 hours in Salt Lake City trying to fix one of my ski (thanks to the guys at Black Diamond for the awesome customer service!) we finally left for the 14 hours drive. Leaving Utah was hard since we had such a blast, but we were reinsure by the storms we hit on our way... Driving all night, arriving at the border around 6am, sleeping for 2 hours waiting for the duty free opening, buying 60 oz of Jim Beam, crossing the border and then getting ready to ski Red Mountain.


About Red, only one word:
WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!
Once we got there, we had the warmest welcome from a resort. The were really happy and glad that we put Red on our journey. Well, after skiing that mountain with 20cm overnight it was really OUR pleasure!! They have everything but one thing: crowd!! Steep, trees, cliff of every size a real skier's dream. The mountain really deserves its title of having the best tree skiing around.... and the tight trees preserve the powder for the dryer days. A small and friendly resort that is really at it best on a powder day.


There's not much groomed runs so the groomed-lovers won't be overwhelmed by this resort. We enjoyed the slow chairlift on the first day since we were pretty tired from the drive, but after a good night of rest, we wished it was faster! And for those who cares; Trail's laundromat sucks!!!


We wish we took more (and better) pictures but being busy skiing powder, staying awake and the flat light kept the camera in the bag...

Pow Pow Pow!!!

Since the last post, we just kept skiing fresh powder!

We received 2 complementary tickets from Deer Valley, so we decided to check it out. We got there after a 10in storm and it was still possible to find some good snow. The trees tend to keep its powder a bit longer than Alta and Snowbird since the average skier is not as good as those two. Deer Valley is a huge resort with lifts everywhere and amazing food at its restaurant (was hard not to buy anything). Perfect for a strong intermediate skier with more money that we have…

The second day at Deer Valley, it was a storm day with about 16in of fresh light powder. It was a pretty good day and we kept skiing all day. It was also a FIS Freestyle event and we had the chance to check out the moguls, the aerial and the skier cross from our kitchen in the parking lot.
After spending 2 days in this big resort, we headed to our first day in the backcountry since we got to Utah. After all the snow that had fallen, the conditions were just incredible and…. we had a bluebird day (here in Utah it’s either snowing or blue sky)!! There was just too much snow to quantify…
Then, we had another dump which pushed the avalanche hazard to high... so we enjoyed complimentary tickets from Brighton. Overnight snowfall: 20in. Yeah baby!! With the main chair closed because of high winds, the majority of the resort was not enough steep for all that snow. But being good Snowchasers, we were still able to find some nice steep stuff to enjoy all that light powder!!! The good thing about that closure is that there was still a lot of fresh powder the next day, a Monday, when that lift opened (the Great Western Express). The weather was pretty nice and it was nice to enjoy all that powder almost alone. The resort tends to get tracked slower than the resorts in Little Cottonwood… and even so, you can do a few runs in the slackcountry (really easy access and nice)!

Then we went back to the backcountry to check out was it was like to ski 2 feet of fresh… well, soooooooooo goooooood!!!!!!!!!!! To make this day even more enjoyable, we had (again) a blue sky… we enjoyed blue sky coming with a lot of snow!

Our journey in Utah has been a amazing one with more than 8 feet of snow in 10 days! Here’s the snowfall history of Alta, just to let you know what you missed!!!

Report Date	24 hr New Snow	24 hr New Water	24 hr Snow Density	Storm Total	Season Cumulative Snow	Season Cumulative Water
2008-02-03	28.0"	1.72"	6.14%	34.0"	446.5"	34.41"
2008-02-02	6.5"	0.62"	9.54%	6.5"	418.5"	32.69"
2008-02-01	12.0"	0.53"	4.42%	21.0"	412.0"	32.07"
2008-01-31	9.0"	0.90"	10.00%	9.0"	400.0"	31.54"
2008-01-30	11.5"	0.80"	6.96%	27.5"	391.0"	30.64"
2008-01-29	16.0"	0.85"	5.31%	16.0"	379.5"	29.84"
2008-01-28	15.0"	1.48"	9.87%	23.0"	363.5"	28.99"
2008-01-27	8.0"	1.02"	12.75%	8.0"	348.5"	27.51"

We are suppose to leave soon, since we have to meet some of our friends in British Columbia… who said there was friends on a two weeks of powder strike?!?

Cheers!!
evans