Summer Ski Stoke #2

Well, one great ski in the Rockies in late June wasn't good enough for me. Had to try July snow. These are from the July 4, 2011, weekend at Snowbird in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. If you are headed this way, pack your XC or touring kit. While the lifts are now officially closed, the Bird, Alta, and Brighton all have tons of snow left. You could realistically cruise the green groomers on a basic XC set. Or, for more fun, bring your 3-pin, AT, or system tele skis and go steep. American Fork Twin Peaks is in shape, as is Pioneer and Baldy. Of course this is all at your own risk and you need to know how to judge the changing conditions of Rockies snow in the sunshine.

I went lazy and used the lifts at the Bird for the 4th weekend. Every face in this pic was skiable and excellent. The stuff you see in the sun was good from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. The stuff in the shadows softened up and was great from about 11 to noon. After that, everything was a sno-cone.
The cliffs were pretty much out of the question. Nothing soft below them, so hitting them was a great idea if you were looking to do a cheap vertebra fuse-job.
Lines from the bookends traverse and the in the bookends themselves were very nice and barely traveled, so the snow remained in good form.
And toward noon, as your quads cried out for mercy, there were sunny, super-sloppy groomers to pass the time. Nothing green was open at the Bird, so even these had some fun in them. Blue-black was the simplest actual trail they had in service. Mostly black and double black. Only the upper mountain was open--Mineral Basin and the area served by the Little Cloud lift on the Gad side--so it kept a lot of the traffic down.
Winter is now only 5 (and 4/5ths) months away. Better get in shape.
Later
CT