An EPIC Utah Trip 1/27-1/31/13 (LOTS OF PICS)

[theKENDOG]

I finally have some time to post up this TR from my trip to Utah, so here we go.



How would I describe this trip? Best week of my life. Hands down. Everything worked out perfectly. Myself, carvebeast, THA HATTER, yardsale, and mmmtaters are all pretty much in agreement that it couldn't have gone any better. The housing and transportation situation was perfect and boy did it snow. A lot. Carvebeast and I were pretty much skunked on snow two years ago when we were last out there. This year definitely made up for it. The official reported totals from the time we were out there were in the 5-6 foot range, but some of those days were underreported. It was unbelievable to have fresh powder every single day we were there. For a period of three days in the middle of the trip, I was in at least knee deep snow more often than not. It was amazing.



Here's the day by day report.

[theKENDOG]

Solitude - Day 1



We decided to start out the trip with a Soli Sunday. Solitude is awesome and it was a great place to start to basically get our legs underneath us as it's not terribly large and doesn't have too much gnarly terrain.



Right on cue, it started snowing that morning. From out front of our place, we could see the snow clouds in the Canyons. We started to get excited. The snow picked up as we made our way up the canyon. Snow covered roads are always a good sign.





The first lift ride up and the stokage was high.





We made one groomer run and then found some stuff to jump off of.





Dave and Twitty were enjoying themselves.





We made a quick hike to an open field right off of Sunrise. I quickly realized how out of shape I am in.





Homemade jerky and shots were in order once we reached the top.









It started to puke snow around midday.





It was a good first day. I have some POV footage but nothing too crazy. They were only reporting 1" that morning but it was dumping throughout the day. They easily saw 6" while we were there and the top part of the mountain had some nice boot deep stashes. It was a great start to the trip.

[theKENDOG]

Brighton - Day 2

The snow continued to fall overnight. Brighton was reporting 13" the next morning so we headed there. I love that place. It is easily my favorite resort out there and Milly is the jam. It's one big playground. There's trees, drops, a big powder bowl...it has everything. It's the best.

Anyways, we all were stoked to see the sun peaking through on the drive up Big Cottonwood.



The first lift ride up got all of us pretty amped.







Here's Tom jumping off a rock.



Here's some POV of the first run down. I really wish I didn't handle that chute like a wuss.



We headed over to Great Western after a few hours.



We went right outside the resort boundary and found a sweet opening in the trees with that had a windlip you could launch off of.



On the traverse back to the lift I dipped right a little too early. I saw fresh pow and trees and got excited. It was a big mistake as I got stuck in a flat area in chest deep snow. It took a while to catch back up with everyone but it was worth it.





It was a solid second day.

[theKENDOG]

Snowbasin - Day 3

This might be the best day of my life haha. We originally were headed to Powder Mountain but heavy snow overnight made the drive north slower than normal. Also, Tom saw on Instagram that Snowbasin was reporting 18" and Pow Mow was only saying 4". That fact combined with the fact that Snowbasin was 30 minutes closer and it was a pretty easy decision.

I'd never been to Snowbasin but had always wanted to try it out. It's swankier than I care for but one thing I love about that is they have gondolas. I'd never been on one but man, I like gondolas. Haha. Anyways, on the first ride up we quickly realized that 18" might be an underreported amount. We saw several skiers in chest deep snow plowing their way down the mountain. Whoa.

The first few hours was in-freakin-sane. Chest deep, blower pow had all of us screaming like little girls. You could hardly see the person in front of you going down because they were in a cloud of white. It was awesome. I don't have too many pics from the morning but you'll see what I'm talking about in the video down below. I did get a couple pics though.





The silliness continued in the afternoon as Strawberry opened up after lunch. This is now my second favorite section in Utah. A gondola, 2500 feet of vert, and a huge amount of terrain makes for so much freakin fun on a powder day.



Twitty was stoked.





So here's a quick mashup of the best clips from the day. Everytime I watch it I laugh because it's pretty crazy. Also, I'm glad Dave was wooing just as much as I was.



When we got back to our place, we knew that it had been a pretty epic day. A ski patroller of 13 years told us on the gondola that it was the deepest, best snow he's ever seen there. He told us at one point the storm was putting out 2% snow. That's 50:1. Then, a writer for Ski Utah, who rides 120 days a year, wrote an ariticle saying it was his best day of skiing ever. Yeah, it was a good day.

[theKENDOG]

Snowbird - Day 4

The pow runs continued for our fourth day. Snowbird was reporting 19" so we headed there. I'm not a huge fan of Snowbird but they were reporting the most new snow so we had to do it. I saw this sign in the Lifthouse while getting our tickets. I like it.



It snowed throughout the entire day. It wasn't the blower pow of the day before, but I don't think anyone was complaining.



Unfortunately, Mineral Basin never opened due to avy conditions. The Tram was closed most, if not all of the day due to high winds. It was straight up whiteout, vertigo inducing conditions at Hidden Peak. I think Dave and I were the only ones who enjoyed our brief stay up there. How often can you say you were in blizzard conditions at 11,000 feet?

We stayed in Gad Valley for most of the day and played in the trees. It was fun.



We found a few things to jump off of. Here's Tom.



And Twitty.



Here's a mashup of some clips. I really like Dave's run through the trees.

[theKENDOG]

Brighton - Day 5

The pow didn't stop for our final day. Brighton was "only" reporting 9" but it was everyone's favorite place so we headed back there. The morning started off at Milly again and everyone was riding pretty hard.

I went off this drop once and decided my knees didn't want anymore punishment so I decided to be photog and I'm glad I did. I got these awesome shots of Dave, Tom, and Brian.





I haven't had time to Photoshop Twitty's yet but here is right as he's going off.



We headed over to Great Western and ducked right out of bounds again. This area was so much fun. Here's Tom and Twitty coming down a fun chute.



Tom was backflipping the windlip.



I accomplished my goal of hitting the log.



And then Tom outdid me by hitting this tree log. It's one of the cooler things I've ever seen him do on a snowboard.



We finished the day by doing hotlaps in the park. After a week of riding pow we all sucked. It was still fun though to ride a park like that.

This day was a good conclusion to the trip to say the least. We then all proceeded to go home and cry ourselves to sleep because we had to leave.

Fin.

[carvebeast]

welp. im gonna go ahead and be the first to comment on this...it was worth the wait haha. i'm not a big TR guy but this is one i can go back and look at for years to remember this trip by. great work kendog, this is epic!

[Tmiller72]

Incredible trip! I'm headed out there in just over a week. I just hope it's half as good as your's!

[ROYMERCER]

unreal TR !!!!

[jamsandwich]

tl;dr