I have plans to go skiing thursday afternoon.  79* forecast, water is still mid to upper 70s.  That being said, season is winding down, cooler weather is coming, boat and slalom course probably pulled in the next few weeks.  Photo from last Friday evening's outing.  

Is that coming off 6 ball?

That sounds like a blast.  Where are you going?

Johnny what is that photo of?

That's up Little Cottonwood Canyon.

JQ

Roger that.

Don't really remember days like that Larry I guess because it was not every day.  What sticks in the mind is leaving the house getting in the cold car, getting to work putting on cold carhartts and boots,getting in the cold van and beginning your day. Then getting in your cold car to head home to start the whole process again the next day. Made you really appreciate those rare perfect spring and fall days. Your picture shows one of those days for sure.   

Not sure.  Based on the tree line in the background, I am going to guess 2.  I think I had a one or two 6's that evening (last friday) but  had several more 2s, 3s and 4s.

Unfortunately Sierra was hit hard by the August Forest fires.   Not sure how much of the mountain is left.   It formerly had the very best tree skiing in California.   Thousands of our trees burned.😣

Larry and Gary, sounds like you think the cold is bad.  I wouldn't give up 4 seasons for anything. By Labor Day, I am done with hot days and summer.  While I love fall, I am looking forward to winter. 

 

I do walk hills 3 miles/day and hit the gym 3 days a week to stay in shape for the mountain. Also ski 3 days/week 2 sets of 8 passes in the slalom course April-October. Retirement is great.

Once Altas all tracked out, cross the street hike Mount Supreme for some hard earned tracks.

That was my favorite routine.

 I had friends that worked winters there and I stayed in the employees lodge with them, once or twice I worked as a guest employee and skied for free.

Oh and we did all that with just 1 pair of skis. Armpit deep powder, bumps, trees, N.East ice moguls all on a pair of 203cm Voelkl slalom ski. 

Now a days with these fancy tech skis I guess you need 3. 

I just picked up my new M6 Mantras and I will make them do it all. Because I can’t afford 3 pair 

I’ve got a pair of 200cm Vokyl GS skis in the attic that I haven’t seen in 12 years. I do ski Rossignol  S3’s most days but the RTM 84’s are my front side skis. Have a pair of Atomic Access 100mm underfoot for the super powder days. When I go out west for 3 months I like to be prepared for anything.

Four seasons:  Fall (yes, lovely up that way), winter, mud and 4th of July.

Paul, I think you've been flying too many High Altitude missions here lately as it's affected your brain. Yes the south has all of that but we don't have mosquitos that will siphon a quart of blood per sitting. Screw Winter..... $100 a day for lift tickets, $100 a day lodging, $600 for airline tix. $75 a day car rental. $75.00 a day for food. $50 for drinks. I can fuel by boat up for an entire ski season for ONE trip to Freeze your @$$ off sliding down the side of a frozen mountain. I'll take slalom skiing everyday with my buds, a boat babe in a bikini to go along with it, floating in 85' water all day off the dock and drinking beer all day never and never have to peel through 3 layers of clothes just to relieve myself. SCREW WINTER!!!! Come on Spring!!!!

I think you definitely need choices out there. I've gone skiless some trips and rented demos so I could have the best skis for the conditions.  When you're only there for a week, you have to take whatever conditions you have.  Seems like over the past 10 years or so I've encountered crud at times and spring conditions during the beginning of March, which never used to happen.  

Either of you guys ever ski the Baldy Chutes?

JQ

Somewhere in my brothers attic my old (1985 vintage) 203 CM Rossingnol FP's with Marker M45 bindings sit and wait for the next trip down the mountain.........

Squaw is cement compared to Utah powder not even on the same scale.

I also love the cirque traverse to the Wilber chutes and upper Mach Schnell. 

The Gad trees are the go to when the bowls get tracked out. 👍👍

The first part of this is true, Montana does get “SOME” dry powder but not a lot annually, same with Colorado. Neither of these places make the top 10 list for powder.

Most resorts in Colorado only average around 300” a year equal to Killington Vt. in the east. Wolf creek gets the most snow in Colorado at 465” yearly average.

All 4 resorts in the cottonwood canyons get better than 500” annually as does Grand Targhee with Jacksonhole at 450” all of which is light dry powder on average.

If someone was looking to ski deep light powder in the US, the Cottonwoods of Utah is #1 with Wyoming being a close second. JMHO 

Do NOT come to Utah.  Too damn crowded.  Stay away. Save yourselves.  Snow and water skiing is terrible.  Colorado welcomes you.  

JQ

Utah has always been great, even when we used to go early December.  But, like they say, don't go there, the beer is watered down and tastes terrible.

Yes don’t go there nasty beer, but you can bring your own bottle of rum into the bar/restaurant. 

I was in Utah a few weeks ago, playing volleyball at the Huntsman Senior Games.  It was in St. George, I really enjoyed the area and the landscape is like nothing I'd been around before.  Years ago my wife and I spent time in Moab, mostly biking, and that was a blast though terrain seemed different from where I just visited.  Currently I'm not an alpine skier so no powder comments.

Like Riley, I enjoy the New England change of seasons and don't have a desire to move elsewhere.

I will say, I skied in Colorado a couple years ago, I worked a job and we finished a day early so I humped it up to Breckinridge for the day, 12” powder in the morning.   I hooked up with some locals and went out to hit it hard.   I was just coming off a season working ski patrol, this was late March, thought I was in great ski shape.  The Colorado crowd took me to school.   I kept up for only 2 runs and started wearing out.   The 12,000 foot elevation kicked my butt and the speed which they were all skiing was much faster than I prefer to go.   I take my hat off to them.   They are very serious skiers.    We took the lift all the way to the top and then they wanted to hike up a 1/4 mile higher to grab some uncut powder and hundreds of these hardy souls were making that hike.   I will blame half my weakness on the altitude and give the other half up to those guys for just being tougher better skiers.   I put in 12-20 days a year skiing, these guys were saying they were at 60 or more ski days that year.   I was jealous.

Standing invitation to CCF members:  If you plan on skiing in Utah, feel free to look me up for a day or 2 on the slopes.  I promise y'all won't have to wait for me...

JQ

KT-22 at Squaw which can no longer be called Squaw due to political pressure, I believe the new name is the "Palisades"  I always found the lift lines on KT-22 were very short because of the difficulty involved so we would ski that lift all day long rather than fight the crowds.   It is California and it is Squaw Valley, a very open resort so windy days are terrible, light powder is rare, heavy powder is plentiful, but it is a very challenging chair and fun.

1. downhill

2. deep powder

3. xc or telemark

86 degree air/68 degree water

Apply sunscreen liberally. 

San Vicente Reservoir, San Diego, CA, Wakeboard Wednesday Sponsored by M20 Marine. 

Not a single boat except for us on the ski course too.  

That picture looks like a nightmare to me!

On the wake foil, why do you need a wake at all?  Won't it rise and "foil" even in flat water?  Or does the wake just make it possible to do tricks?

The sit down hydrofoil is really fun. We don't drop the rope at all, but we can go as big as we want regardless of the wake. Being strapped in keeps us from getting the knee and ankle injuries that are prevalent with wake boarding. Who needs a big ballasted boat when I can jump and flip no problem even behind my low wake boat. The photo is of my buddy Nate throwing a gainer out in the flat wide from the boat with no wake to assist. Air Chair, Sky Ski, Next, RP3 and Extreme products can give you quite the ride :) Was a midlife crisis purchase for me 9 years ago. Too much fun.

The best part of the Ski Nautique is that I have two ski babes who slalom year round behind it. They wouldn't go if I got a big wake boat. Having them rally early midweek regularly is a treat and they laugh at my crashes. 

I've posted this before, but it shows how easy it is to go big with relatively no wake behind my boat. Never enough toys :)

Impressive!

Right now if you did that up here by the time you landed it would be on ice.   24 degrees when I got up this morning.