April 21st 2006

Greetings everyone,

The cold Low that swept across the upper intermountain west, the same storm that delivered 32" in South Dakota on April 18th, gave us 18-22" of light, cold snow on Saturday and Sunday of last weekend. On Monday through Wednesday the cold temps lingered and created a couple days of classic Utah riding. And this is the last week of the season, it seems like it just got started...












Tuesday, April 18th 2006, Brighton Backcountry

The picture above is Tuesday, April 18th. I put in 5 runs on stupid chute, 1000 turns gully, figure-8 hill and the lower wolverine bowl headwall. I couldn't stop the snow was so good. I mean, take the best snowboarding you've ever done and times it by 5, that is how good the snow was. By the 5th line, about 2000+ vert of riding, in a couple of hours, I was ready to head back to the resort and call it a day.

Wednesday, April 19th 2006, Wolverine Cirque

The next day, Wednesday, I was getting over the head pow shots on Wolverine Cirque. You can see the remnants of the turns on the lower apron, but the best turns were in the trees above. Every turn, faceshot, turn, faceshot-I had to wear my neck gator the whole run. I couldn't believe how good the show was...

Wednesday, April 18th 2006, Wolverine Cirque

Here's a picture of Paul Sherman pointing to the chute he just skied. If you look close enough, you can see the turns coming out-the chute is the widest one in the picture. Epic!

Wednesday, April 18th 2006, Figure-8 hill

Last runs of the day-Paul's turns on the left, mine on the right. You can see the powder spray on the visible 2nd-4th turns coming down off my line...

As the temps begin to rise, and the valley warms-the eminent melting of the cold snow is a sign of the advancement of spring. For these days, we claimed the best spring season snow of the month, and for the winter for that matter. And with our changing weather patterns, the threats of global warming and other factors that produce anomalies in storm patterns, you never can tell what the future holds for the next snow fall. We could get another week like this one starting on Sunday-that is the glory of living in Salt Lake with the Wasatch out my back door. There are so many mountains to climb and lines to snowboard-I hope the week we just had stretches into June. Time will tell...

Live passionately,

Max