all is calm

 H and I don't really celebrate Christmas (I do put up some decorations because I like them but we don't exchange gifts) but we used to have the "tradition" of watching A Christmas Story and Elf.  We haven't done that in recent years, however, because we've learned that Christmas is a great time - for us - to go to Moab.  It can be cold, sure, but it is definitely the off season which means it is quiet.  Trails are sparsely populated and there is very little traffic.  It is wonderful.  You do have to time it right weather-wise to get over the Soldier Summit pass and this year, as we drove down Thursday afternoon, it was fine: cold, partially cloudy skies and dry roads.

Moody

H was tangled up with work on Friday so Milton and I just did a hike along the Pipedream trail, from the Jackson Street entrance to the Hidden Valley trailhead and back again.  That's around five-ish miles, I think, enough to give me credit for exercise and a good opportunity for the dog to get his fidgets out.  He ran and ran and ran, back and forth along the trail, charging up and down the hillsides.  There weren't any lizards to chase, of course, but he found some songbirds to flush out of the shrubbery.

Pipedream lichen (a series)

There wasn't any snow in the Moab valley itself although the benches had a dusting; higher up on the plateaus surrounding the mountains there was definite accumulation.  The trail were on was nicely frozen so it wasn't muddy.  Temperatures were in the mid- to high 30s (F) - perfectly fine for light exertion, although I didn't take my gloves off whilst in the shade.  

Lichen the winter desert a lot

We encountered only one MTBer and his dog who didn't care for Milton all that much - she set her boundaries pretty clearly but there wasn't any real kerfuffle - so for that afternoon's social interaction, H and I wandered over to Woody's (hooray for keeping their liquor license).  Our regular bartender was there so we were able to give her a Christmas card, and our buddy Chris managed to squeeze in a beer with us in between his family commitments.

I have no pun for this one

Tangentially-related:  this article explains why we like dive bars (Woody's) so much.

the aftermath

 After that incredible week of snow, very cold temperatures moved in, preserving all that snow but also making me very reluctant to strap my skis on.  I only got a ten-pack of tickets this year and I don't want to use them on days where I'm in the lodge every two runs, trying to thaw my toes.  This strategy worked for sure on Saturday where it was 10 F at our house at 8:30 a.m. and 2 F up at Alta.

Here comes the sun (Albion chair)

The ski bus is running again, albeit in a reduced capacity: every half an hour instead of every fifteen minutes and the Alta drop-off is at Wildcat Base only, not Albion Lodge.  On the face of it, this presents a problem since the "lodge" at Wildcat Base is Goldminer's Daughter, which is a hotel and which last year decided they really preferred to have their paying guests cluttering up the lodge area and jacked the day locker rentals to $15/day.  Albion Lodge is a day lodge for everyone but if you get dropped off at Wildcat Base, you can't get up there unless you put on your boots and skis and ride the tow rope.  EXCEPT that H learned - after a standing-room-only 7:15 a.m. bus - that there's an Alta shuttle that goes between Wildcat Base and Albion Lodge, dropping employees (and the hoi polloi) off as they go.  That's fantastic and H got up to Albion Lodge by 7:55.

Cold in the shade tho'

Because the new Sunnyside lift is not yet put together, Alta opened the quaint and very slow Albion two-seater chairlift to help get people out of the base area.  This is the first time either of us had ridden that chair and yes, it is excruciatingly slow, but it's very pretty AND gets you up to where you can easily access the Supreme and Sugarloaf chairs.  From there, the resort was pretty much wide open - Alta ski patrol had managed the 71" of fresh well, with only Devil's Castle, East Castle and Mt. Baldy still roped off.  It was cold, for sure, but it wasn't quite as crowded as H expected (see above re: 2 F) and the snow was magnificent, so deep and so soft.  Rocks? What rocks?  

Coming out of Catherine's Area

H skied all over - Backside, Ballroom, Catherine's Area, Fred's Trees - and worked himself hard: at one point he was in mid-thigh deep snow, which was fantastic ... until it flattened out at the bottom and left him flailing to get back onto a groomer.  He caught the 1:09 bus down (and since the reduced bus routes don't go on the bypass road between Snowbird and Alta anymore, staying on the main road instead, the trip time is a bit shorter) and it's quite possible that there was an afternoon nap when he got home.

happy holidays

 All who wander are not lost - happy holidays to all y'all!

big snow

All the northern Utah skiers just got a fantastic early Christmas present: a storm that totally over-delivered.  It started snowing Sunday evening 12/11/22 and literally - literally - did not stop snowing until Thursday afternoon 12/15.  We got about a foot total at our house; since this was spread out over 4.5 days, the commutes weren't too terrible, with Thursday being the worst for me (Monday was worse for folks who take I-15 and who were coming down from Davis County, I heard).

Wednesday, in the valley

The mountains did very, very well for themselves out of this storm.  Alta ended up with 71+ inches storm-total, 225 inches season to-date and a base of 83 inches.  That's fantastic and puts them in good shape for the upcoming circus that is Christmas vacation week.  And statewide, the snowpack is looking pretty healthy in general.  If we don't get a long dry spell (which seems to happen mid-winters of late), we might not have such a water deficit come springtime.  I mean, we won't be out of the drought but we'll be in better shape for sure.

From Thursday: the stoke was high

in between games

It wasn't all soccer, all the time, of course.  Friday evening, after we got home from the afternoon games, we found ourselves back at our neighbor's house (with Milton, who gets along with her dog), still talking about the game (our neighbor is a massive Messi fan).  Her roommates showed up, then her neighbors on the other side showed up with their cutie pie dog Terra.  Then I ran back to our place for snacks, and the other neighbor brough snacks from their place ... and before we knew it, we were having a chill, spontaneous party that was just so much fun.  When H, Milt and I finally wandered home around 8 p.m. (we were the first to leave), we realized that we'd just spent twelve hours with other people.  Wow!

Our neighbor's neighbors' dog Terra

Milton and I got out on Saturday between the morning and afternoon games for a quick three-ish miles on Pipedream.  That trail is great for morning hikes this time of year because it's along east-facing cliffs and gets morning sun as soon as it rises above the LaSal mountains.  Of course, this also means that it loses the sun quickly this time of year, with those cliffs looming overhead to block the sun.  The sections that were still in the sun were pleasant and even muddy in spots; the shady sections were definitely chilly and still frozen.

Frosty spot

Snow in the mountains

priorities

 Did we go all the way to Moab for a long weekend and spend it watching four World Cup soccer games?  You're darn right we did!  In our defense, we hadn't intended to watch the morning games, figuring we'd go out for a hike or MTB before the second games at noon.  But when your neighbor texts you at 7:45 saying that she's got coffee made and you should come over for kick-off, what are you going to do?  For the noon games, we went out to support local businesses (Dewey's, in this instance) to watch Argentina and France win to move onto the semifinals.  

Look at us, hanging out with friends even!

Yes, this is just filler.  But wait 'til you hear about how much snow we just got!  

continuing to build the base

 After the Thanksgiving weekend, northern Utah played host to two good storm systems that brought  enough to the valleys that it messed up a couple morning commutes.  More importantly, we got some terrific snow in the mountains.  The Big and Little Cottonwood Canyon resorts both filled up so ski season is definitely on, although the ski bus still isn't running yet.

Crowded at the start

On Saturday, H skied his alpine set up and on Sunday he did telemark.  The Sunnyside lift is still under reconstruction, which means that everyone trying to get out of the Alta base areas was standing in the Collins lift line; H sent me a photo Saturday morning, saying that he was standing uphill of the Wildcat lift, waiting to load Collins.  

Less crowded in Catherine's Area

The snow was good, though, especially Saturday, with the new inches refreshing the decent existing base.  There were a couple of rocky spots - on Thursday, numerous resorts had lifts on wind hold (not that common out here) and Alta ended up closing early due to 95 m.p.h. gusts.  That'll shift some snow for sure.

Tree skiing

It was quite windy though, with the second storm system moving out, and on Sunday the visibility was terrible: flat light and snowing.  H reported hardly anyone riding the Sugarloaf lift either day as that lift is very exposed and positively miserable in the wind.  H covered some ground, however, getting into the trees and out into Catherine's Area.  After so many recent years with sparse coverage, it's fantastic that so much is open so early.

Low vis

Meanwhile, down in the valley, Milton and I took 3+ mile walks both mornings,  vaccumed, cleaned bathrooms, dealt with laundry, made two soups (red lentil and mulligatawney), baked chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread cake and pumpkin/peanut butter dog biscuits, tried a new recipe for dinner (mapo tofu) and waterproofed my ski pants ... because I'm fixin' to get up there myself pretty soon.

big fans

 The rest of the long Thanksgiving weekend was a combination of hiking, jigaw puzzles and World Cup soccer matches - no black Friday nonsense for us!  We prefer to spend our money locally, at a bar, yelling at bad calls and missed shots.

On Friday, we headed up to Sandflats Recreation Area.  After reupping our season pass, we parked at the Slickrock trailhead.  It was early-ish and still fairly chilly so there were only a couple of vehicles there, getting ready to ride, and all the 4x4 folks were bundled up against the cold.  Knowing that the USAvENG game was at noon, we had time limitations, so we walked out along the Slickrock trail to the Abyss overlook, paused to watch some jeeps navigating the sandstone domes across from us, and then walked back via the Practice loop.  Somewhere between 4-5 miles, enough to get some exercise in.  Back at the parking lot, there were lots more people getting ready to head out and Milton introduced himself to a group who were quite charmed by him.

View from the Practice loop - what a day!

At noon, we, our friend Jose, and several other fans were standing at Woody's front door, waiting to be let in.  Every television in the place was showing the US match and every person in the place was there to watch it.  The game ended in a draw: surprising for England but a decent result for the young American team.

Saturday, Milton and I went out to Moab Brand Trails in the morning while H did some errands.  We did our now-usual Circle O route and saw literally no one out on the trails until we were heading back on the parking lot cut-off.  Again, Milt introduced himself to the people around us and proved extraordinarily brave when a baby wanted to see him; babies and toddlers make him nervous, because they can be loud and erratic, but I held him so the baby could pat him and it all ended well.

Autumnal pothole

For the Argentina v Mexico game that afternoon we found ourselves at Dewey's as Woody's didn't have the staff to open that early.  Both our neighbor Amelia and Jose joined us - we have friends! - and it was a slightly more exciting match this time.  We even stuck around long enough on Sunday to watch Germany v Spain, which was the best match of all the ones we watched.

tunnel vision

The weather cooperated - as did our work schedules - and we were able to get down to Moab by Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving.  First stop: Woody's, where we met up with a buddy and learned that the bar was not, in fact, going to lose their liquor license due to some arcane Utah regulation.  We didn't find out exactly what happened but we were thankful that our local dive was keeping their doors open.

Drive to survive

Thanksgiving morning (late morning, actually), we drove north of town to the Mill Canyon trails.  We were heading for the Tusher Tunnel, a feature that I'd been wanting to check out for some time.  There are apparently a couple ways to get to the actual tunnel trailhead, one via the Mill Canyon road and one via the Blue Hills road; since both those roads are technically jeep roads and we had the Subaru, we opted to park in the OHV lot and walk in along the Mill Canyon road.  A couple of range cows, down to over-winter in the desert, watched us with a little interest.

Entrance

When we got to the 3D/Monitor & Merrimac intersection, where we'd opted to turn left for the M&M in May, we this time followed this 3D section up the very sandy hill.  The trail climbed to a ridge overlooking a very pretty wash, then dropped northwesterly into a different wash.  The trail eventually rejoined a Mill Canyon jeep road spur which deposited us at the trail head parking area.  There was fencing, signs and a visitors' log; several vehicles with slightly higher clearance than we had were already parked there.

In the tunnel

A short trail from the parking area led to the Tusher Tunnel.  It isn't a tunnel at all, but an arch-in-progress; in a couple of spots you can see some light overhead where the rock fins meet.  I didn't know what to expect but it was really cool!  Long enough, and with a slight bend so you can't see the exit from the entrance, but not so long that it was freaky - just a little ways in was enough to see the far end.  And the view from the exit was spectacular: red stone levels and fins wrapping around in a bowl with a wash at the bottom and the snow-covered La Sal mountains in the distance.

Exit

We chatted with the folks already there - from Texas and huge dog fans: they wanted to know all about Milton and then showed us photos of their own dogs - and had a quick snack.  Then, instead of retracing our steps through the tunnel, we made our way down into the wash and walked out that way until the wash crossed the 3D trail.  I had hoped that it might be out of the wind not up on the ridge; it wasn't, but it definitely cut some distance off.

The boys

Hike stats: 8.59 miles; moving 2:09 hours/4.0 m.p.h. (fast!); overall 2:26/3.5; 720 feet of elevation.

Sure do dig that view

Back home it was a low key Thanksgiving with Bloody Marys, shepherd's pie and chocolate chip cookies.