day three and return to telemark

The third day of opening weekend for Alta: no new snow, bluebird skies, slightly warmer temperatures.  While Milton and I took a long walk, made Italian white bean and pasta stew, pumpkin-cornbread muffins, chocolate chip cookies and a plum compote (and Milton followed the sun from window to window around the house), H got out his telemark gear and headed up to Alta.  

Bluebird sky

He got to Albion lodge at about quarter to eight.  The crowds are down a bit (Sunday, plus early season, plus no new snow) but he did see a good number of other tele skiers.  Like the day before, there were no lift lines once the initial crowd cleared out and he was able to ski right onto the lift for most of the day.  Unlike the days before, it was slightly warmer and, since he was working harder on his tele gear, he ended up being overdressed - which must have been a nice change from frozen toes from the last two days.  

There are no storms in the forecast (and it's starting to get inversion-y in the valley) so everyone is making the most of it: on the other side of the Wasatch, Canyons Park City has opened their 9990 area for the first time EVER in November.  Stoke is high for the season - let's hope it's a good one.

second day, much like the first

I  just bought a ten-pack of tickets this season since I've only managed twelve or so ski days for each of the last few years.  So I am not about to use one of them on the second day of the season when it's so frickin' cold.  Texts from H:  At 7:37 a.m. - "Albion Day Lodge.  It's 9 F."  At a little after 11 a.m.:  "Stopping in Watson's to warm up."  H almost never has to warm up.  

Top o' Supreme

There wasn't any new snow - although these frigid temperatures are certainly helping to preserve it - but Alta did get the Supreme lift opened to spread folks around some.  H rode up with a patroller on one chair ride and learned that they'd really only started roping things off on Monday.  Takes a while to cover all that terrain.  

Supreme selfie

H skied until 1 p.m. and then headed back down canyon, rejoining Milton and me.  We had had a productive day down in the valley ourselves: a 4ish mile walk; dealing with all kinds of laundry; prepping and freezing produce (sauteed celery and onions for future soups; roasted butternut squash cubes); making a batch of spicy black beans in the Instant-pot and a double batch of soy curl jerky in the dehydrator; and trying out a new recipe for dinner - homemade wontons in chili-scallion broth (delicious but a lot of work).

opening day 2022/2023

 I mentioned that winter has arrived in Utah: not only has it been 10-15 degrees colder than "normal," recent storms in the northern part of the state have brought more snow than we've seen this early in years.  Big Cottonwood Canyon got hammered, inspiring Brighton and Solitude to both open Veterans' Day weekend.  Alta and Snowbird held out for another week, and yet their 2022/2023 season opening days were still weeks earlier than they have been recently.

He just looks cold, doesn't he?

Alta opened November 18 and H was there, as he likes to do.  The ski bus doesn't start for a while yet so he had to drive up, but things have been dry since that last wonderful storm so the road wasn't an issue.  He went to Wildcat base and was first in line to pick up his season pass.  I was at work and was kept updated by text.  

"Everyone got their boots buckled?"

The new Sunnyside lift is still under construction (completion by Christmas, they hope) so they were running the Collins, Wildcat and Sugarloaf lifts.  At 10:23 a.m., he reported: "Very cold.  Snow is pretty good for before Thanksgiving.  Especially before Thanksgiving."  An amazing amount of terrain was open, including the Ballroom (!), Backside (!!) and the High Traverse (!!!).  He did find that the snow was better on the Sugarloaf side: there's a lot of manmade snow on the front side, especially in the high traffic areas, and the natural stuff is just better.  H skied until after noon, then headed down with cold feet.

The Ballroom on Opening Day

where the new content at?

 Ooh boy, we have been in a veritable content desert here, despite a recent sojourn in the actual desert.  Winter has arrived, in SLC and Moab (less so in St. George, which is much lower in elevation), and when we were in Moab last, it was 20s F overnight and barely reaching to 40 F during the day.

Remnants of recent rains

This is far too cold for me to MTB - my hands and feet get too cold under 50 F - but H can still do it, so we all went to Moab Brand Trails so Milton and I could hike whilst H rode.  We each did our usual routes but apparently the chilly temperatures encouraged Milt and me to walk much quicker than we've been doing, so we were already heading back to the truck via the parking lot cut-off when H met us.  There were a fair number of people there, heading out, coming back, puttering around, and we realized it wasn't too cold for a beer while we chatted with people.  Including a young Quebecois couple who were van-camping and thought they might head south to warmer locations (re above re St. George/Hurricane).

Desert lichen

The next day we three did a short hike, checking out an out-and-back, hiking-only trail just off the start of Poison Spider.  This is an easy walk on an old road under the Poison Spider Mesa cliffs and just goes out a little ways to a view of the Colorado River (about 3.5 miles RT total).  Because we were just above the river, there were lots of smooth cobblestones and former river rocks.  Afterwards, we again found it not too chilly for a parking lot beer and chatted with folks as Milton went up and introduced himself.

Overcast on Poison Spider Mesa

And that was about it - hopefully we'll be able to get out on some more interesting trails soon.

baking interlude

 November has definitely arrived in northern Utah.  This past weekend was gray and cold and wet and gloomy: very November-y.  The mountains are getting good snow, so that's fantastic, but there was no getting around the fact that it was pretty dreary down in the Salt Lake valley.

On the plus side, cold weather means I can start baking again!  I made a couple of very healthy things: vegan chai-spiced breakfast cookies (with rolled oats, flaxseed, coconut, maple syrup, hemp seeds, dates, pistachios, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice, cloves and pepper); and Josey Baker's Adventure Bread (rolled oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flaxseed, almonds, psyllium husk and chia seeds).  H's comment on the bread was, "It tastes like it's good for you," - which is true, but it's also sliced thinly, toasted and smeared with peanut butter and blueberry jam.  It would work with a savory spread too, like hummus.

Gluten-free and accidentally vegan

Lest you think it's all healthy up in here (it's very much not), I also made a batch of our favorite chocolate chip cookies.

time flies

 Whoops!  That week completely got away from me.  We three had gotten down to Moab last weekend but by the time Friday morning rolled around, a nasty head cold had pounced on me (much worse than my bout with COVID at the beginning of September).  I managed to manage it with judicious applications of DayQuil/NyQuil over the weekend but then it stuck around through the week, stealing my voice and most of my energy.  Fortunately H has stayed healthy and mostly annoyed at all my nose-blowing.  I'm pretty annoyed by it at this point too.

That most recent weekend in Moab wasn't entirely wasted, however.  H and Milton did a Moab Rim hike on Friday; we three and our neighbor Amelia, plus her dog Moscow, went for a short hike on Johnson's Up-top, a very locals place that she knew about.  And on Sunday, before the drive back to SLC, Milton and I did the Millcreek rim/canyon loop, having the place largely to ourselves.

The La Sals from Millcreek rim