wherein we skipped spring and went straight to summer

It is far too early in the year to be in the high 70s in northern Utah.  And yet, there we were, all weekend, unseasonably warm.  Was it lovely to be outside in it?  Yes.  Is it too early to be doing yard work?  Oh yes.  Was it scary with what it could mean for our snowpack, which is melting so, so fast?  Also yes.  Hopefully temperatures will be dropping to more normal levels; there's even supposed to be a little midweek mountain snow.  In the meantime, there's nothing to do but go skiing.

We layered way down for Saturday, basically a thin base layer, a non-insulating mid layer and a shell.  I didn't even wear my boot covers (for the record, my toes did still get cold).  The bus was not very crowded but once we got up and got skiing, the Sugarloaf lift had very long lines all morning.  Everyone was skiing that lift because the trails it serves are better oriented to catch the morning sun.  Eveyone freezes up overnight so Supreme was nigh unskiable first thing - if you had Eastern style sharp edges, you would have been fine.  I haven't had my skis tuned since 2019/2020 so I was happy to stand in the Sugarloaf lines for the softer snow.

Matching my jacket to the sky

Extrovert was very good, although I timed it wrong and had to dodge a bunch of other people on it.  We took the EBT around and did a run in the Backside/East Greeley.  There, we had it to ourselves but we had almost waited too long: it was very very soft and very heavy.  I had to do hop turns to get my skis around.  We were very sweaty by the time we got down but I was super-glad we'd done it - that was my first time in there all season.  We then spent some time on Collins once the sun got overhead more.  Someone has put a big wiggle right down the middle of the Ballroom again and it was fun watching folks flying through those corners.  By 12:45, the warming snow was grabbing at my waxless skis and I almost went over the handlebars (figuratively) several times as we skied out to catch the 1:29 bus down canyon.

Wiggle!

H went up solo on Sunday, taking his tele set up.  There were high thin clouds all day so, while it was temperate, things did not get nearly so slushy as they had done on Saturday - the top of Collins never even softened up.  And although there weren't as many people there, the wiggle got plenty of play (not by H, though, not on his telemark skis).