Powder Mountain Revisited 03/02/07

[andyzee]

Weather: Bluebird Skys, temps from 8-14 degrees.

Conditions: Groomed with 18 inches of powder on top and all powder.

Report:

Well getting boring her in Utah, yesterday for the first time we revisited a mountain. When asking V were she want to go, she didn't hesitate, she said Powder Mountain and cat skiing. We got to powder mountain after an 18" snow fall and the mountain lived up to it's name. Powder could be found all over the place. I went to purchase our lift tickets and tickets for the snow cat and I was informed that the snow cat was not yet running. No biggie, the last time we were here it didn't start running until about 11. In the meantime we decided to do a few laps on Boot Hill. Boot Hill is a black diamond run that's all powder, not too steep or long, perhaps 700 veritical. The route to Boot Hill takes you right past the cat loading zone. As a result, we did this most of the morning. No complaints, it's a fun run with deep powder. This is the run where I finally learned how to use the powder skis, kind of By about 11:45 I asked about the cat and was told it wouldn't be running that day Real sin, all this fresh pow, great weather and no cat to take us up to the goods

Since the cat wouldn't be running we decided to check out other sections of the mountain. On this day we were true powder hounds, doing nothing but searching for fresh pow. No problem finding it here, we worked our way over to the new high speed quad they have and were a bit dissappointed to find that most of the terrain it serviced was greens and blues. We immediately worked our way over to another lift that serviced more challenging terrain. This was a blast fresh pow for about 1500 vertical. After that we worked our way back to the HSQ and went into Powder Country.

Powder Country is a bit odd, it's inbound, yet it is a total back country skiing, all trees and powder for at least 1500 veritical. Here we had a pretty good time, unfortunetly we did have to play it safe and follow other tracks, you do not want to make a wrong turn in this area! Eventually, you end up on the road leading up to the main lodges. Powder Mountain has a shuttle that pick skiers up along this road and takes them back to the lodges. After Powder Country, we were pretty beat and decided to go back to the area we started in, which included Boot Hill. Nice thing about Powder Mountain, it doesn't get tracked as quick as other places, Boot Hill was almost as good at the end of the day as it was at the beginning. We did a few laps here and then called it a day at about 3:30.

Today, it's going to be Solitude until about 2. Then a quick change and ride to the airport where we'll catch a 5:30 flight. That's the one nice thing about Utah. You can ski and still get to the airport in plenty of time for your flight. Well, here's some pics from yesterday:

Road to the main lodges and the base of Powder Country:










My powder queen on Boot Hill :



Me, finally getting the hang of the powder skis on Boot Hill:



Me again:

[andyzee]

And some more pics:





V's turning into a regular show off on her new skis! :





Can I get my screen name changed to Powder Chief ? :



Road to Powder Country, no lack of warning:



Powder Country:



Another pic of Powder Country. You end up at the road at the bottom where a shuttle pics you up:




For full sized pics of this trip as well as all other Utah pics I posted, go to http://killingtonaccessrd.com/cpg/index.php?cat=16

[tirolerpeter]

Beautiful pictures Andy! It looks like all your pre-trip anxieties were for naught.

[Grassi21]

Looks sweet. I can't wait to get out West someday.

[andyzee]

Originally Posted by tirolerpeter

Beautiful pictures Andy! It looks like all your pre-trip anxieties were for naught.

Well with all the snow they got while we were out there, yes you are right. Alta reported 7.5 feet during our stay!

[Kyle K]

Holy Pow!

I'm heading out to Snowbasin and Powder Mountain next Monday. Hope you didn't ring all of the snow out of the clouds on your trip! Great info - snow or sunshine, I'm pumped for the experience. Powder Country looks like an excellent call.

In the mean time, it's warm here and since daylight savings time came early, the Killington Pico Cycling Club starts our Wednesday night rides this week (weather permitting.) Any interest? We'll have a small group heading out for our maiden voyage from the College of Saint Joes in Rutland at 5:30.

[andyzee]

Originally Posted by Kyle K

Holy Pow!

I'm heading out to Snowbasin and Powder Mountain next Monday. Hope you didn't ring all of the snow out of the clouds on your trip! Great info - snow or sunshine, I'm pumped for the experience. Powder Country looks like an excellent call.

In the mean time, it's warm here and since daylight savings time came early, the Killington Pico Cycling Club starts our Wednesday night rides this week (weather permitting.) Any interest? We'll have a small group heading out for our maiden voyage from the College of Saint Joes in Rutland at 5:30.

I'd love to join you guys for biking, but I'm in NJ.

Kyle, Couple things to keep in mind:

• While I was out there, they did recieve 7 feet in one week. Haven't had any where near as much since.
• You may want to take a look at reports on http://firsttracksonline.com/boards/ and even sign up and ask how things are out there. They are based out of Utah so they may be able to give you some good info, I thank tirolerpeter for this fine link.
• There is a lot of flat terrain at Powder Mountain, for a challenge you best bets are anything off Paradise lift, cat skiing and the Powder Country area.
• If you can, bring your own food. The cafeteria isn't the most efficient.

Best of luck on the trip, hope you get tons of snow!

[dmc]

So - I made a bad choice following a friend at the Powder Country run at PM...
It was PUKING out and we didn't see the boundry sign... Ended up on the wrong side of the ridge... We were riding knee deep untracked and suddenly realized we we're coming to the bottom of a ravine with no road in sight... We ended up on the wrong side of the creek and had to hike a good ways to find a place safe enough to cross.. Because as my buddy crossed the creek the snow collapsed just as he got the the other side...
We debated on weather to hike for the road or climb... I chose climb back up...
It took a couple hours but we climbed back up all without snowshoes...

It was amajor mistake... Looking at the topo afterwords I could see if we chose hike out to the raod we would've ended up in worse shape and proabably would've had to spend the night...

So when in doubt - climb back out...