Ronnie’s Utah adventures took him from the twists and turns of Little Cottonwood Canyon to the luxury digs at Snowbasin; photo above taken in the Strawberry Fields section if my memory serves correctly. If you’ve never heard of or visited Snowbasin don’t be too alarmed — it flies under the radar by comparison to a lot of the better-known Utah resorts. It’s got the same fabulous terrain, just out of the way a bit tucked up near a town called Huntsville, which is east of Ogden. Kind of across a broad valley from Powder Mountain. Anyway, Snowbasin built by money from Sinclair Oil, and home to some fairly nasty terrain if you know where to look. Also hosted the Alpine races during the Salt Lake Olympics. While Ron was fully prepared for the terrain, he wasn’t quite expecting the high-tone lodge experience, which is really second to none. Not just at the base, but also up high, and multiple spots. You have to see them to believe them.
Snow hitting up the west pretty darn well, our friends at Anthony Lakes up in Oregon reporting 8″ of fresh. Elsewhere in the Pacific northwest, recent tragedy involving a couple of teenage snowshoers who were killed Sunday by an avalanche near the Alpental Resort/Summit at Snoqualmie.
Moving east, today is either a great day or a terrible day, depending on where you are in relation to the rain/snow line. Or you could be at Mount Snow, where it’s great and terrible at the same time: The conditions are fantastic but the summit is on indefinite wind hold. Jeff M. tells us it’s the first time he’s ever ridden the Ego Alley chair, which happens to be one of my faves.
Move over to New York State and almost every area is getting positively hammered. Looks like throwback area Plattekill is getting the most from this storm, they’re fully open but I gotta say it looks like whiteout hell right now. Tomorrow’s a much better option for most of us. Move north a bit and mid-sized West Mountain getting pounded as well, they’re closed today but will be open tomorrow with some great conditions.
Other than this massive storm in the east and the big snows in the west, news of the day has to be Killington’s announced expansions/upgrades. Kmart scheduled to knock down the old fixed grip Snowden chair, replacing with a high speed, bubble-topped six-pack. How about that. Also putting a new chair up on the old South Ridge terrain, and moving the Snowden platter over to Ram’s Head. Only reason I can think of for relocating the platter is maybe they’re trying to keep the park rats on the ground. Nothing against park rats mind you, although they could take a few fashion lessons from Ronnie above.