The names have been hanged to protect the innocent...

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The forecast of 7-11 inches at Basin overnight was wrong, instead they received 20

(EDIT: on top of 5'-8' in the last week)

Got up at 2:30 AM, did the dogs, packed the ski gear, headed to work for a few hours

Standing in the JP line at 8:50 when they announced an hour late opening. Scurried over to the needles gondola.

Cottonwood canyons were closed so about 100 powder hungry, salivating folks were jammed into the gondola line. Was thinking that everyone would be headed to the EDIT so I cruised the EDIT under the gondola, hiked the EDIT knob and then got a taste of what was going to be in store…the snow was fast, the mantra’s were float’in.

Picked up the cat track to get over to the top of the wildcat lift with visions of becks to find a line of 20 people racing to get there first (never seen that happen before). Made a quick decision to leave them with becks and hooked around to the right of the EDIT and cruised uncut the entire length of the EDIT run. JP was loading but there was a line. Noticed no line at the gondola, decision made easy.

Pointed the skis for the EDIT, was thinking it would be chopped… nope, virgin face shots instead. Took the 10 minutes to cut a traverse to EDIT bowl, hit a favorite spot. The mantra’s sunk a little into the steeper bowl, blasting snow past my ears.

Caught the needles gondola again. Heard strawberry was open. Traversed phil pot ridge then dove into a 2 mile long high speed entirely virgin powder run to the base of the strawberry gondola. Hiked to the EDIT and had fun paralleling the SW facing rock band. Some avalanche charge debris, but the snow was so soft it made no difference.

Took the roller coaster hills to EDIT, had the place to myself. Was rockin to killer tunes, it was snowing and windy, no tracks, perfect snow, legs were strong, the mantra’s ruled, it was magic…

Did that again, then worked it back to JP via the EDIT and EDIT.

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I was lookin at plane tickets for this event between 750$ and 1200$ After reading this I woulda paid happily as thats not a bad helicopter rate for one day let alone multiple days of this stuff with more "lift" vertical than you'd probably get from a helicopter....

Bob, you're soooo freakin smart.

LMAO, I don't know what he does with his dogs and I don't ask

"I was worried they would close the canyon and they did at 8:30. I was up in the lodge at 7:30! Just a little excited."
You are my freakin idol! So on top of it!

"You know the view across From the Eagle chair? I was surprised there were lines in there this morning."
Amazing.... some days you just get lucky but those are dice I just wont roll. On our backcountry day, with an avalanche rating of CONSIDERABLE in isolated areas, two guys layed down "a line to die for" It was awesome and looked badass but with those conditions..... you were literally risking your life on so many levels. They got lucky and had a great day but..... One snowmobiler was killed by an avalanche in the Bountiful area in the middle of this storm. Gotta rely on more than just luck if ya want to keep doing this stuff for the rest of a long life.

another country heard from

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Hi Dave,

I was going to spare you the story of skiing this week. I figured you didn't want to hear about the armpit deep powder I landed in. I thought it would just make you jealous if I told you that I honestly wanted a snorkel on Tuesday because the face shots were so plentiful. I didn't want to tell you about bottomless fluff at Solitude, at 1:30 pm, in the secret stashes, on a powder day. I thought that would be insensitive of me to bring it up, so I'm glad I didn't.

Cheers,

-Nick

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Yeh, my brother used to work at Alta so he got a couple of those days. Once they let ya out of the buildings, ya just have the place to yourself.... what a concept