ski guests day 2: solitude

W had never been to Solitude, and the other four of us had had a marvelous couple of days there last year, so that was where we headed for the second ski day. W took the UTA Ski Bus from Snowbird to the park-n-ride at the entrance to Little Cottonwood Canyon ($4) and we picked him up there, heading up to Big Cottonwood Canyon. There were some high, thin clouds scattered across the sky and absolutely no traffic. Solitude was pretty much going to live up to its name.

 The conditions started out like the previous day's: frozen hard for the morning and then softening up in a hurry. We spent the first couple of hours chasing down any trail that had sunshine on it. At one point, C and H made the misbegotten decision to attempt Honeycomb Canyon via the Here Be Dragons gates; W, A and I took one look over the edge at all the rocks and decided not to join them.  When they rejoined us for lunch, claiming an "epic run" despite the mud on the tops of their skis, we were smug in our decision.

After lunch the snow got slushy fast, so we headed out to the Summit lift and did a bunch of runs there, really enjoying the narrow chutes in the trees which had somehow held onto their snow.  When that lift closed, we worked the soft bumps covering Paradise and Vertigo until our legs couldn't bump any longer.

By the time we skied back to the truck, through incredibly soft, wet and sticky snow, the clouds had rolled in.  We enjoyed quick parking lot PBRs before heading down canyon to meet W's wife at the Porcupine; she'd spent the day at the spa and pool at Snowbird and amazingly didn't mind hanging out with five scruffy, smelly, sweaty skiers.  We had beers and nachos - the Porcupine's nachos are huge and soooooo good, especially with their chile verde - then made plans to meet up with W in the morning to go back to Alta.  It does seem a little odd, I know, to keep skiing at the same resort(s) over and over again when there are so many options so close by, but with the winter we've been having you have to ski where the snow is - and the snow is at Alta.

The four of us headed home and, being stuffed from the nachos, didn't bother with any dinner.  Instead, we watched the University of Maine play BU in the Hockey East semi-finals and then went to bed early.  There really aren't any late nights with the group, not when there's skiing to be had.