February Update Part 2
It’s 7:35 on this Monday morning as I walk into my most attention-grabbing class, Accounting Information Systems….Don’t get me wrong, I feel extremely privileged to attend such a great program and school, but this class doesn’t quite offer the rush or excitement that some of my more preferred activities do. A 6:30 alarm set for a school day just isn’t the same as its equivalent on a day in the mountains.
After about 15minutes, I finally come to the realization that I’ve unconsciously been hacking away at dry skin on the tip of my nose. To anyone glancing at me in class, it probably looks like I’m on an endless bender trying to clear my nasal cavity of every long lost booger. While my nose is now a bit sensitive to touch and probably glowing red with unweathered skin, it represents something significant. It’s’ amazing how a fully functioning mind has the capacity to store and readily be able to replay events we decide to reminisce upon. The significance revolving around the erosion of my nose are the events that I’ve participated in that have contributed to it’s weakening..endless amounts of faceshots and cold snow plastered to my face, strong blustery gusts whipping one around on the highest ridges, and the warm sun beating down on my face after long days of shredding.
Here’s a little throwback of myself and friend Jeremy Lato making our first trip to the top of Mt Superior
As a refresher, last week’s post gave insight to sunny park laps and sketchy closeout rails in the streets. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen ANY significant snow accumulation in the city, or enough to get stoked on urban for that matter. On the upside, patterns switched and the mountains have been receiving much love from the snow gods. For 2 weeks starting January 14th we didn’t receive a trace of snow. Including the 13 inches we saw January 30th, we’ve received almost 8 feet of snow in the last month, you can imagine that the skiing has been good!
Slingshottin through the trees on a fun drop
360 in mineral, jeff rowe with the filming
Bo Torrey and I cruisin into Poop chute just as thunder and lighting struck
360 Pov in mineral
I’ve never really had the luxury of being able to consistently link up with a photographer at a resort. If I have it’s been by luck, thus me posting mainly POV content which I definitely don’t mind doing. This year I’ve had the fortune of meeting John Lykins. John is a local Snowbird skier who shreds super hard and takes great photos. John always has a camera on deck so he’s always ready to line up the shot. The next couple are some of our recent work together.
Snowbird has been super fun and very soft lately so venturing into the backcountry hasn’t really been on the forefront of my mind. Not to forget, we received a storm mid February that provided significant water weight to our snowpack yielding an extremely high avalanche danger. After close observation to the Utah Avalanche forecast and having numerous in-depth conversations, we decided with the right aspect and careful skepticism we could ski something cool safely. We decided on a more westerly face since it hadn’t been receiving the loading that N and E aspects were and it proved to be an excellent choice! Grey Wilde, Jeff Rowe, and myself stood at the bottom of a classic 1500’ Wasatch gem slapping high fives, hootin and hollerin, as we just nailed this thing in the best conditions we have ever skied it. It was Jeff’s first time and I’m sure not his last! The snow was light enough to get in your face with a quick snap of the skis yet solid enough to grip an edge and open it up. Normally I enjoy tasting a bit of snow on the way down and making some quick hockey style slashes but this time I just wanted to ski it super fast and as smooth as possible. I definitely do not regret it.
Grey and I have been roommates since the dorms. We both moved to Utah from Ohio in pursuit of skiing awesome lines. 5 years later we’re still making it happen. The stoke is high after a great, untouched descent into Cardiff Fork. Linking up to plan out days like this are easy when all you have to do is walk upstairs to discuss what will be the best route for the day.
The following day I got to link up with a great crew to go do more walking around the backcountry. Myself, Ware, and Karl skinning and Tanaka behind the lens.
Following John Ware into the choke as Karl Fost and Luke Tanaka anxiously wait to drop.
After topping out on Toledo Bowl I convinced the crew that we should ski the same line as I did yesterday..Everyone was stoked on the idea as Luke and John hadn’t dropped this line before. These fellas had just spent a month of skiing bottomless pow in Japan, I think this run kept them pretty stoked on Utah. Fresh snow and some wind buffing regenerated this guy from the day before.
Predictions of future snow sound favorable. Keep your fingers crossed that we get more powder! My spring break is in about 2 weeks, may have a trip planned, we will see.
noargumentoverthechoice liked this