skiing in the new year

I mentioned it was going to be cold this past weekend: when we were getting ready to head up to Alta Friday morning, the wind chill was –21F. Being the poor-circulationed person that I am, I opted out of –21F windchill. (What a wimp: between my back and working this past week and chickening out due to the cold, I’m at about one-third the ski days H is). H skied all day, however, mostly in Catherine’s Area where he was tempted to, but did not, go off the backside. When he came home, we rang in the New Year (early) with homemade pizza and cheap champagne. Welcome, 2011!

Alta Ski Patrol is quite helpful

 Saturday was still cold, but not as cold as Friday had been: the temperature at the base lodge was 1F and it was only –4 up top. We wore our facemasks – almost everyone skiing wore their facemasks – and I had absolutely no exposed skin, managing to stay warmer than I would have expected. I did still have to go in for a cup of coffee and a 45+ minute warm-up, but by noon the clouds had cleared and the bright sun definitely made things warmer.

H’s legs were a little fatigued at this point, so he largely skied with me on the groomers, jumping off now and again into the bumps. We skied exclusively off the Supreme lift and, thankfully, for some reason Alta groomed several more trails so we had seven groomers to chose from, instead of just four like last weekend. The snow was a little sticky so that you got scarcely any glide in the flats; it coated the trees gorgeously.

Naturally flocked trees on the Challenger trail

I tweaked my stupid back skating out on the East Baldy Traverse ("EBT"/Collins Return) when we left Saturday, so I did not go on Sunday. I wish I had been able to since it warmed up to nearly 27F, allowing H to ski without his facemask. He reported that the snow was less sticky too, and that he’d found TONS of untracked powder (the second weekend of a holiday week – amazing!) out in Catherine’s Area. Getting to a trail just when they drop the rope is a good way to get freshies too.

Low traffic area off Supreme chair

I’m going to go to the gym all week, and work on strengthening and stretching my back out so that next weekend, I can ski both days without injury. At this point there’s no snow in the forecast (rats!) but weather here moves in and out pretty quickly, so maybe we’ll get some new pow for my birthday.