It's been a while sense our last adventure post! We have been busy playing in all the fresh stuff that's on the ground. Another three feet of famous Utah powder has fallen in the last few days.
Heather and I slept in on Wednsday as we both had low expectations for any snow that day. It wasn't until we heard the news that both little and big cottonwood canyons were closed due to avalanche danger. The SkiUtah snow report was reporting only 4" of new snow over night, but we knew better... 4" of new snow dosen't send down a 300 foot wide slide!
We quickly found something to eat, downed a couple cups of coffee and started to hit re-fresh every few minutes on the UDOT traffic page. At 10:45am Big Cottonwood Canyon opened up, at 10:50am we were on the road. The canyon lights where on, 4x4 or Chains required, we decided to ignore the lights (again), and hope that front wheel drive and traction control are enough. With a bit of creative driving and luck we arrived safe at Brighton just before noon.
We knew it would be a good day on the drive up because we stayed under 20mph the whole way. We counted over a dozen small slides that reached the road, some only two or three feet deep, and a small handful of the slides made it across the road and into the river. No wonder it took UDOT and the plows over three hours to open up the road!
We found ourselves on the lift soon after arriving, no need to wait in line today! The resort was empty.
It's not often that you find 18" of powder on the green runs! Heather got her first real feel of Utah powder. The green runs were too flat to be fun, so we headed to the top of the mountain and tackled a dozen or so blue runs and two short and sweet black diamond runs. We both found hidden powder stashes that came up past our knees, a few spots came up mid-thigh! When four rolled around we made our way to Molly Greens, which is Brighton's Pub. After an hour of drinking and eating we decided to cash in our night passes and spend another few hours on the mountain.
Night skiing wasn't as great, the parking lot quickly filled up and lift lines when from non existent to a 10 minute wait... we decided to hit up the slower lift and search for hidden powder on the green runs. Even at 9pm, we were finding 12 - 18" of powder ours for the taking... Without any question, Wednesday was our best day yet on the slopes. There was just something amazing about the day, the late start, the fresh powder, hitting up dozens of new runs with nobody else in view.
The powder fest didn't end Wednesday! Another 18" fell between Wed night and Friday afternoon. I'll have Heather post about todays adventure as soon as we finish editing the video... :)
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