spring skiing at snowbird

With the first installment of the next wave of visitors from back East having arrived Tuesday night, H and I made plans with them to ski at Snowbird on Wednesday.  (My first vacation day!)  Although it was forecast - this time correctly - to be sunny and very warm, our friends Melissa and Judy were advised upon checking in at the resort that it would be pretty crusty first thing in the morning and taking the first chair was probably not what we wanted to do.  So we leisurely got up, swung by the Lift House for tickets for everyone ($54 chair tickets - those tram tickets are a total rip-off because there's a chair from the back side of Snowbird that takes you right up next to where the tram unloads) and met the girls as they were finishing their breakfasts at the Forklift restaurant at Snowbird Center. 

By the time everyone had gotten organized and in line at the chairlift at 10 a.m., we were already overdressed and sweating.  The snow hadn't softened yet, however, so we rode the Peruvian Express chair to the tunnel through the mountain to Mineral Basin on the back side.  Here, in the bowl, the sun was beating down fiercely and after a couple of groomed runs we were ready to tackle the traverses into the rough stuff.  We stayed over at Mineral Basin all morning, then had lunch (expensive and not that good, but the lunch we'd packed and left in the car was waaaaay too far away at that point) at the Mid-Gad lodge. 

Way overdressed

After lunch, everything had softened up, even the snow in the shade under the trees, and we had a blast.  We skied tons of bumps runs - huge, soft moguls - over in the Gad Valley, flirted with some trees and bowls and just road the Gad 2 and Little Cloud lifts all afternoon.  By about 3:30 our legs were beat - Melissa and Judy were wicked good sports, having only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before - and we took a steep (Cirque Traverse to Lower Cirque) and bumpy (Lower Silver Fox) run out.

Judy and Melissa look pretty happy!

It was just awesome, probably the best day of spring skiing I've ever had.  The sunshine and scenery were spectacular - Snowbird is quite dramatic - and the snow, although there wasn't a ton of it, was marvelous: soft and creamy, sticky only in a couple of places and never deteriorating into slush.  Magnificent.

Don't know who this is, but just look at those mountains

We split up for a couple of hours to shower and change and then re-met Melissa and Judy for dinner and brews at the Porcupine, which was completely slammed what with being St. Patrick's Day and all.  Still, we got seated, fed and rehydrated ... and H and I were on our way to the airport at 9:00 p.m. to pick up the next arrivals.  To be continued!