Full Speed Ahead

Another packed Saturday Ski-day for my crew. I met Dalt at barbecoa at 4:40, we were to Fletch's gate by 4:58, at 5:00 we decided to call. Alarm failure was the claim. Good thing Dalt had distributed the unwritten rules of dawn patrol, (http://straightchuter.com/2009/02/the-unwritten-rules-of-dawn-patrolling/) so upon waking from our call at 5:00, Fletch was only minutes from being ready. Nice recovery. Warm morning, about 25 degrees (f). We got to our undisclosed premium parking location and were skinning by about 5:25. We decided to ascend the east face of USA bowl. The snow condition was about 5 inches of dust on crust. We made good time through the trees and traversed around the mountain under the radio towers. The dust was scoured from the crust on the upper south facing slopes, so we had a little lesson in edge purchase. In the areas were the wind-blown snow was deposited into 1-2 ft drifts was quite challenging as well. We made our transition, snapped and few photos and dropped in. We made some super turns at mach speeds through the untracked open bowl. Felt like flying. About 14oo ft. vert and 1.6 miles one way.

I was home by 8:30, I made some quick breakfast for the sleepy eyes and loaded up the kids and off to rugby practice by 9:15. The kids played on the jungle gym and the Haggis and I had a good run. We were home by 11:15, quick lunch, load up the car and back up Big Cottonwood Canyon to ski at Solitude by 1:00.

The 2 pictures below are taken with the other in the background. Notice the mountain peak on the top center of the photo with my Crew, that is where the other picture was taken from. Vise versa, notice the slopes of Solitude on the middle left of the top photo.

Mindy, Elle, Talin, Ava and I had a great afternoon skiing. For the most part, I had Ava strapped to my front, Mindy sorted out "I go super-fast" Talin, Elle just floated down the mountain like a princess. Both Elle and Talin are skiing increasingly varied terrain and are both testing the limits. I told them "if you are not wrecking (every once in a while) you are not pushing hard enough." They improved a lot this week. To finish off the day we played some tunes and took in some sun on the deck of the Argenta Pub.

We were home by 4:30, quick bath-time, and made it to a fun dinner at Jess, Monica, Jaden, and Haper Jensen's house in Jeremy by 6:15. We ate, the kids played, I conquered the world of Catan, and we were out by 10:00. Needless to say, we were all wiped out after a day of full-speed-ahead. A man couldn't ask for a more fulfilling day of skiing. This is what it is all about.