Ah, Thanksgiving, a wonderful holiday revolving around stuffing yourself silly, jumping in a car with 2 other Magions and blasting out to Utah as fast as you can. Our arrival at the base of LCC around 4:30am was sprinkled with snow. Further up the canyon we encounter 6-8 inches on the road, slowing our arrival to the ultra pimp Cliff lodge at Snowbird. As tired as we were, sleep still did not come easy at 5:30am, knowing what was falling just up the road at Alta. The Red Baron has struck again.
First helping:
After our 2.5 hour nap, Meatdrink, GT40, Freshie247 and myself popped out of bed refreshed, ready to rock and rushed up to Alta to see a monster wait already lined up for the new Collins lift. Not to mention the 10+” of new snow at the base. We passed on the wait and jumped in the much shorter line for Wildcat with Altachick, Powho, and a very sleep deprived CS, fresh in from LA. Lap after lap in Wildcat, we kept finding good stuff, while the masses shredded West Rustler and the High T. Boot to knee deep everywhere.
Later in the day we took our first ride on the new Collins chair, met up with a posse of Magions and proceeded to find some wind blown goods all over West Rustler. Our tanks were low on sleep but overflowing with stoke. After lunch GT broke out his camera and some slutting took place off of Wildcat. CS threw a nice back resulting in a sweet tip tap to the face, Powho was throwing Lincolns successfully with Spatulas on, Meatdrink worked on his lawn darts and a back or two, while Freshie and myself worked on our X-up and grab steeze.
Shortly after 3pm we had to pull the chute and get back to the Pimp palace at Snowbird. GT was gracious enough to let us crash in his timeshare at Snowbird. Hot tub, 15 minute nap, and out the door to downtown SLC. Legswide had throw down at his house, with many board folks in attendance. I was lectured on party etiquette, “chicks, booze, but preferably both”. Good thing I was carrying a big bottle of booze in the car. Drinks were had, stories were told, and hallucinate I almost did from lack of sleep. Back to the palace for my first full night sleep in 2 days. End result 40 hours awake, 2.5 hours sleep and a foot of fresh.
Second Course:
Low pressure moving in….Snow starting early with chance of Nuclear in the afternoon.
The local news forecast gave us a good idea of what the day was to bring us. Hmm, no rush to this one. Name of the game was to have some legs in the afternoon, when the snow was to really start falling. 3” of fresh on my car at 9am. Back to Alta by 9:30, after we packed out of Snowbird. Lined up with AC and CS again, with the addition of Blurred. Quick glance at the Barometer tracing on my Altimeter watch, showed the pressure dropping like a stone. Things were looking good, as it was already snowing up top. Even more Magions were present and accounted for Saturday than the day before, some more sore from the party the night before than others.
“You can’t tell me it’s not on when it’s clearly on” was the mindset of the day. It was like a carnivorous rage on the High T, lap after lap. We even went and took a look at the infamous Rus 4, I passed and took some nice pow turns in the trees with Freshie on the other side of the trees. While others kept venturing out on the High T, I took some thigh deep laps in Fred’s trees. CS and Freshie were recruited later by MD9 with a money back guarantee. A few nice drops were found, even a nice little cliff band at the end of the Saddle traverse with a bottomless landing. Everyone hucked. My first huck resulted in tomahawk with 2 revolutions![]()
CS: diving in on an extra large helping of powder
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MD9: Stomping out of yet another huck into soft white creamyness
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Soon after lunch our legs were feeling the burn and we thought we should plan one last run. We decided to go out to Supreme bowl, as it was one of my favorite areas from my last Alta visit.
One last lap my ass. As we arrived at the Supreme chair the wind died down and the snowfall picked up three fold. In line MD9 bumped in to Powder’s own Derrick Taylor. One quick lap with these guys showed us where all the good snow was hiding. Face shots were had and hucks were scouted out for the following day. Probably 3 laps of Supreme later on our last chair, we were saying, “it can’t possibly snow any harder” for the third time in a row. It was absolutely puking and there was no doubt in our minds that Sunday was going to be the day of all days.
After the longest ride down the canyon any of us had ever experienced, we headed of to a feast of meat and another full night sleep, thanks to the gracious hosting of Powho. Snow reports were checked multiple times before bed, 9 inches had fallen during the day, and more was coming. Sleep once again did not come easy.
I hoped you saved room for desert:
Wake up was planned for 6, but all of us had been tossing and turning since 5. Our escape was made from the valley and up into the canyon, nice and early. Half of the people in the first two rows at Collins were Magions. There was so much stoke flying as waist deep snow surrounded the base area with bombs as background noise. We were shaking like kids on Ritalin.
Finally the lifts started turning to our cheers. We wound up on the chair right behind Sage and the Collins brothers. Powho had all of his slut capturing gear and ripped off 2 rolls of film in the first 2 runs as we farmed super light pow. AC, MD9, CS, Freshie, powho and I were giggling with delight as we mowed some pow and laid first tracks underneath the lift. Let it be known, this was by far and away my best day on skis EVER. Face shots were had all day long. It was good EVERYWHERE.
Altachick getting some:
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Fuggin A it was Deep: MD9 working on his product placement
After a few farming runs, we met up with GT40 and it was huck time. Meatdrink was on a hucking mission. Huck everything he could in rapid succession. The cliffs by Thirds, hucked by CS, Powho, and Meatdrink. On to Glory hole, big huck by MD9. We lost CS in the process of making it over to a cliff/chute huck in Supreme, once again MD9 threw down. Last but not least over to Westward Ho for the sketchiest of the day. Communication issues kept us from documenting this one correctly, but GT might have a shot of it.
Everyone wound up hucking with the forgiving landings we were provided with. AC got her first one of the year after some encouragement, (there is no crying in hucking).
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Freshie stepped up and dropped some nice ones as well. And of course CS and Powho never disappoint.
CS, staying upright on his "thirds"
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Powho and his new move: "Making Soup"
I can’t say enough about how good it was on Sunday, so I won’t keep trying. Finally at 4, we had to get home. We made it up to Goldminer’s and said goodbye to all that were there. You could see it on everyone’s faces, how good of a day it was. Heck I couldn’t even sleep on the ride home, because everytime I closed my eyes the highlight reel would start running.
Grateful, is the one word that described this trip the most to me. I had some great company with Freshie and MD on the trip out. Met up with some old friends and met new ones. It was great to have all that snow so many days in a row, it truly could not have been any better. Thanks to GT and Powho for putting us up and letting us slut for them.
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