First off, I want to thank all the maggots that made this possible. Especially, skiguide & skiingbear for hooking me up with the prototype short BRO’s to try out, Buzzworthy for his Snowbasin guiding skills and general safety orientation, and flykdog for showing us around Powder Mountain in less than optimal visibility and weather conditions.
Also, be warned this will be a long multipart thread with lots of pictures none of which are really spectacular or particularly gnarly. We’re a bunch of gapers from the Southeast who post on a messageboard at SkiNorthCarolina.com that came out to Utah to have some fun, plain and simple. So without further adieu….
The SkiNC Utah Summit
So somewhere around July or so last year, GreshamB came up with this hairbrained idea that we should get a trip together from the messageboard to Utah. It sounded like a good idea at the time, 5 or 6 people from here heading off to Salt Lake in search of good times and pow. Well, things kind of exploded and all of a sudden 20 or so folks were booking flights and hotel rooms and the SkiNC UT Summit 2006 was born.
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Fast forward to Jan. 28 and the first of the crew was leaving out of Atlanta early in the AM after pulling an all night party session. Knowing that Mr.Stinky has the propensity for overindulging, we had previously prepared the official “Mr. Stinky Pass Out Pillow” which was awarded to him on the flight out of Atlanta.
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A few hours later we were treated to this view on our approach into Salt Lake.
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Bags were gathered and we anxiously awaited the arrival of our shuttle to the car rental place. Upon the shuttle’s arrival you should have seen the driver’s face when our group just kept coming from everywhere with more and more bags for him until finally he conceded that he couldn’t load us all in his bus so he would take just the drivers and then we could come back and pick everyone else up.
Bowen567, Mr. Stinky, Teledave
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After a quick stop at the La Quinta to change we made it up to Brighton about 2 PM. I met up with skiguide and SkiingBear and picked up the prototype short BRO’s from them. SkiGuide and SkiingBear seemed to be concerned that Mr. Stinky was not his usual self, I can assure them now that the real Mr. Stinky showed up a bit later in the evening. It had been snowing the previous night and throughout the day. It was still snowing steadily, a portent of things to come.
Dave with BRO’s
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Geared up and ready to go we chose to hit the Millicent lift until it closed down and then head over to the center mountain after they shut that lift down for a touch of night skiing. Bowen567 asked if we were going to hit something easy to warm up, hah! No time for that with the 2 best lifts on the mountain closing down in 2 ½ hours. Excellent conditions on Millie, while it was fairly tracked by the time we got there, there were still some good stashes to hit.
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MBlacky & Snowbird
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Teledave
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Markhpnc
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Brighton Vid Log In is: teledave@gmail.com Password: gaper
At 4:30, Brighton goes into night skiing mode with the main lift being the Crest Express. After a few runs around the groomers, we all thought that the area off of the main trails looked pretty inviting. We started hitting the trees off of the runs on the lower half of the mountain, taking it easy at first and then going deeper and deeper into them. The white of the snow shone up from the ground silhouetting the trees, point your skis toward the light places and avoid the dark spots. Honestly, this was some of the best skiing of the trip. The snow was feather light, thigh to waist deep, and the mystery of skiing through the trees in the darkness was exhilarating. By now, the snow is coming down hard; nuking as we would get used to saying.
Teledave dropping into the trees
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We finished out the day with some beverages, stories and laughs at Molly Green’s before heading down the canyon back to Salt Lake City.
Molly Green’s
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SkiNC has arrived in Utah (GreshamB & SkiMastercraft)
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Back at the LaQuinta we got our stuff packed away, set up departure times for tomorrow, made some phone calls. Some of us headed off to Hooters for a bite not knowing that it was Mr. Stinky's Birthday, but that’s another story and as they say what happens in Utah stays in Utah.
After our Hooters trip we had one last pilgrimage to make in the city,
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Nothing like a dozen Southern boys invading a Utah liquor store, the highlight was when the first of our party made a purchase and the clerk asked to see everyone’s ID. All of a sudden SkiNC’ers were coming from everywhere, the look on the clerks face was priceless.
Back to the LaQuinta and bed, dreams of a powder day at Snowbasin dancing in our heads.
To be continued…… (sometime tomorrow)
