best day of the season (so far)

We were all business Saturday morning: get up, get dressed, get breakfast, get in the truck.  With the new snow, we knew it would be busy up on the hill; we got up there just before they started loading Collins and the corral was packed.  The snow had started falling just below Snowbird and we had graupel at Collins base.  It was very windy but warmer than it had been the day before, and it kept snowing - hard - higher up the mountain, filling in tracks all day.

Sugarloaf smiles

Because of the new snow, everything that had been closed Friday was still closed, plus they had Catherine's Area roped off too.  We started at Sugarloaf, doing many fantastic laps around Chartreuse Slot, Chartreuse Nose and the Extrovert area, where the snow was consistently over my knees and very soft, although slightly heavier than before.  Visibility was pretty poor with the storm but we didn't care.  I felt like I was skiing pretty well (not fighting the snow, for a change) and the boys were patient about waiting for me.

Shredding gnar pow in Supreme Bowl

We switched to Supreme and were skiing there when Ski Patrol opened the gate into the Lower Supreme Bowl.  The snow was amazing in there, super soft and well over my knees.  H managed to score first tracks down our favorite ridge and my brother was gleefully throwing himself into every chute he could fine.  I stuck with them, finding the steep chutes actually easier to ski than the intermediate trails, which were getting cut up and choppy.

Made it back into Catherine's

After lunch, we went back to Sugarloaf again for more Chartreuse/Extrovert runs, then returned to Supreme for a number of runs in the lower bowl.  We followed a traverse around the bowl and made our way into lower Catherine's, skiing the trees.  It was fantastic in there and we were finding lots of untracked snow even after 3 p.m.  At this point, we were skiing right back onto the lift without waiting in line: the canyon road closed from 2:30 - 3:30 and the crowds cleared out around 2, hoping to beat the road closure.  Not us: there was too much snow to be found.

Supreme Bowl siblings

We closed Supreme lift at 3:30, then did another run off Sugarloaf - and our legs were on fire at this point.  We closed Sugarloaf, doing a cruiser run through the cabins before skiing out and getting back to the car around 4 p.m.  The road was reopened and was perfectly clear below Snowbird, so we had no trouble driving out.  Too tired to go back out, we cleaned up, put comfy pants on and settled in for an evening of lasagne, beer and the Olympics.  We had one more day ahead of us and it was going to snow all night.