Day 1 - Solitude

Back in October my best friend Andrew and I decided that we needed to take a snowboarding trip to Utah this winter. Andrew and I met at Crystal Mountain, Washington in late 1991, where Drew (as he was known to the crew) proceeded to teach me how to rip the mountain with style. 3 years later, during the winter of 1994/1994, I moved to Utah for the winter season to be a fine dining cook at the Mill Creek Inn. I also worked part-time at Solitude Ski Resort, a job that came with a season pass. Andrew came out to visit on his way across country that November, and we enjoyed one of the best days of the year with 5 feet of snow the week prior and 18 inches of new the night he arrived. We should have known that this trip would again confirm that Utah has the "greatest snow on Earth".

On Thursday, January 31st, 2008, Andrew and I flew into Salt Lake City airport at just after 8 p.m. We got our bags quickly, and rented a all-wheel drive Subaru wagon for the week. Following the weather all week, we had watched 2 separate storm systems dump over 4 feet of snow between Sunday and Wednesday. The forecasts were calling for another storm Thursday night, so we were expecting a powder day on Friday.

It was tough to sleep, and we awoke at 6 a.m. to check the snow report. The forecasts were right! Solitude had received 17 inches overnight, no top of 6 inches the day before for a storm total of 23 inches of new snow. Driving up Big Cottonwood canyon, the snow was coming down as snow plows cleared the opposite lane and cars loaded with over a foot of snow on the roof passed us. Stoked!

Solitude Ski Resort is one of the best ski resorts in Utah, and this was one of the best days of the season. There are 3 main areas at Solitude - the face, summit, and Honeycomb canyon, which is like an inbounds backcountry area that is never groomed. Most of the time, Honeycomb remains closed on a powder day, because there is enough other terrain for people to hit, and it takes time for ski patrol to do avalanche control. Not this day. The entire was open by noon, and we hit pretty much all my favorite steep runs on the mountain by the time all was said and done. The snow was thigh deep, and in some cases almost too deep. If you fell on a traverse or a flatter area, it would take 10 minutes just to get back up!

The only regret about our first day in Utah was thinking that it could not possibly get any better than this! Or could it? Our next day at Snowbasin proved that you never know what to expect until you try. More to follow...