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Despite temperatures reaching the high 50’s on Sunday, we awoke Monday morning, our nation’s President’s Day, to a few inches of the white stuff bowing the trees down in SLC. Hastily, we called the avy phone and were informed of a reported 15 inches of Utah’s signature light and dry and 10 percent water content in the Wasatch.
With a busy President’s Day expected, the usually uncrowded slopes of Solitude Mountain Resort up Big Cottonwood Canyon seemed like a wise, Abraham Lincoln-esque decision. And a great call it turned out to be as the 15-18 inches fell on a firm layer underneath making for fast blower turns and multiple shots to the face and over the head.
Prior to the ropes dropping in Solitude’s gem of a stash in Honeycomb Canyon, freeheeler Robbie McMahon and Montana resident Kurt Konz, sporting a wannabe powder mustache, effortlessly arced turns in deep, soft conditions off the Powderhorn and Summit Chairs. The storm contributed to a fantastic February week of the light and dry that Utah is known for all too well. Let’s hope our Founding Fathers and other notable leaders were proud of our reverent, breathless efforts. -John Stifter
