We all left for the airport around 3 PM with Aaron and Kate in one car, Patty, Dave, and Bob in another, and Judy, Ryan, and myself in a third. As we were getting ready to go through the airport screeners, I realized that I had left my snowboard tool in my backpack. Crap, I thought. I had already checked in my bags so I figured I’d just try to get through. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), they detected my potential weapon and I had to go back and put it into one of my check in bags. Luckily, those bags were still sitting out waiting to be loaded and it was no problem stuffing the tool into Behemoth.

By coincidence, VJ was there just returning from a business trip. We both thought that we had met previously on a rafting trip, but Judy violently corrected us. Although we both had, on separate occasions, gone white water rafting in King’s Canyon, we had apparently never gone on the same white water rafting trip. Foiled again by Judy’s memory. Oh well.

Avis Screw-Up
After picking up our bags at the SLC airport, we went to get our rental car. Judy had reserved two vehicles in her name (since she is a member of Avis Preferred) but even though she had called specifically to confirm this just a few days prior, Avis screwed it up thinking that the second vehicle was a mistaken duplicate. We quickly got that resolved and decided to get two Buick Rendezvous. They’re fairly ugly SUVs, but they’re a good bit bigger than the Blazer alternative. We asked for racks that could accommodate both skis and snowboards and the lady at the desk pointed outside into the lot and asked if those would be OK. It didn’t appear that the racks she was referring to could accommodate snowboards, but she insisted they could. All right, then hook us up!

As we went out to our vehicles, an Avis guy had begun installing the racks. As we had initially suspected, the recommended racks could not accommodate snowboards! We made him take those off and install ones that could. The other vehicle already had ski racks on them (which couldn’t fit snowboards), but we just let it be since we were able to fit all the boards on the first vehicle.

Just as we were ready to leave, someone asked if these vehicles were 4WD. They were supposed to be, but we couldn’t find any mechanism in the vehicle that would shift it into 4WD. We returned to the office and the lady there said that there should be a button right on the dashboard. We went back to the cars to take a closer look. Nope, nothing there. We tried looking in the owner’s manual, but that was nowhere to be found. Just as we were about to head back to the front office, we noticed a label on the rear of the vehicle indicating that the vehicle was AWD (All-Wheel Drive). According to Aaron, AWD is not quite the same thing as 4WD, but Avis classifies all AWD vehicles as 4WD. AWD would likely be good enough so we went on our merry way.

Fred Meyers and Moose Hollow
We got to Fred Meyers at around 10:45, just in time because they close at 11:00. I stayed in the car to watch the skis and boards while everyone else went in to get groceries.

Our condo at Moose Hollow was in a brand new development and was pretty nice. The condo we had was spacious, but somewhat awkwardly layed out. The main family room felt pretty cramped and had a pathetically puny TV to boot. And it didn’t even look like the maid had cleaned the place up. There was still food in the fridge, crumbs and stuff on the carpet, and even half-used soap in the showers! Dave ended up doing some vacuuming to clean the place up a bit.

We unloaded all our groceries and it was definitely a lot of groceries. Several of us were pretty hungry by now (most ate dinner at the SD airport and hadn’t eaten since) and ate a hasty dinner of fat-filled Kettle Chips and Doritos. Judy and I took the futon in the family room, Aaron and Kate the upstairs bedroom, Dave and Patty the downstairs master, and Bob and Ryan coupled up in the other downstairs room. Just prior to bed, we all did our best to convince Ryan that dust is primarily made of skin, and while Patty massaged a big knot in Judy’s back, we discussed the potential energy involved in doing lat pull-downs.

Room Upgrade and Powder Mountain
Our alarm clock on Saturday turned out to be a strong gust of wind that blew open the patio door. It was pretty windy outside and things looked cold, but it looked like it had snowed a few inches the night before. On our way to Powder Mountain, we stopped at the front desk to check-in and to get more towels. We explained to the lady at the front desk that our room did not seem to have been cleaned. She was really nice, apologized and generously offered us a free upgrade to a bigger, brand spanking new, 4-bedroom condo (the one we had was a 3-bedroom). She also threw in 2 additional free lift ticket passes (for a total of 4). Now that’s customer service!

When we got to the Powder Mountain parking lot, Aaron, realized that he had forgotten his boots. The rest of us bought tickets and took a few runs as Aaron drove back to the condo to retrieve his boots. There had been a light dusting the night before so the snow was kind of crusty with a light layer of powder. Aaron soon met up with us and we headed up Lightning Ridge. The main bowl looked like the visibility might not be that good so Aaron, Kate, and I went off through the trees. The trees weren’t that great, but the rest of the group reported that the bowl was really nice.

It snowed off and on throughout the day and it was really windy and cold. At the end of the day, we returned to the condo and had to move all of our belongings from the former #304 to the larger #307. #307 was much better. The family room was more spacious and it had a good sized TV. With the extra bedroom, everyone would now be able to get a bed.

That night, Lisa and Scott came over for dinner and brought their rugrat Kaleb. Pasta was cooked and salad made. Scott made some cheese bread and also brought a cheesecake for dessert. Patty spent a good portion of the evening trying to explain the differences between Dimetripochocephalasaurus and Diplodoteronadactyltops to Kaleb. There was no shortage of food and that was with most of us not even touching the cheesecake or the complimentary Moose Hollow ice cream. We all went to bed fat and happy.

Snowbasin
Snowbasin is a resort located maybe 10-15 miles from Powder Mountain. It has traditionally been a small, relatively unknown resort, but during the last Olympics, they supposedly upgraded much of the resort in an effort to become a bigger, world-class resort. This included several gondolas and some unbelievably incredible bathrooms. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for us), the crowds never materialized.

Many of us had heard good things about the place so we decided to check it out. We were definitely not disappointed. Snowbasin is an awesome place with good terrain, classic Utah snow, uncrowded conditions, and GONDOLAS! The women were particularly fond of the relatively warm gondolas, especially Judy. We spent nearly the entire day on Strawberry Express because we really had no reason to go elsewhere. Both the snow and the runs were great and we found many jumps and interesting terrain like a couple of half-pipe-like gullies and a cool little run with tight, twisty turns and small whoop-dee-doos.

The plan was to hit the Bangkok Chef for dinner. On the way there, Aaron was exhibiting some erratic driving behavior. Those of us following behind him thought it odd that he nearly came to a complete stop in the middle of the road just because the sun came out. The sun was somewhat blinding, but not that bad. Moments later, he pulled over and we found out that their vehicle was supposedly out of windshield wiper fluid. The windshield was so dirty that he couldn’t see a thing when the sun came out. Bob ran across the street to get some snow to clean the windshield, but that turned out to be unnecessary. Apparently, there actually was windshield wiper fluid, but Aaron just didn’t know how to use it!

Closed on Sundays?!!
Unfortunately, the Bangkok Chef is closed on Sundays. Say what? What kind of restaurant closes for half of the weekend? Our car (me, Judy, Patty, Dave) voted that we just go to Fred Meyer, grab some stuff, and eat that with the rest of the pasta leftovers from the night before. Some Rotisserie Chicken was starting to sound pretty good to me. The other car didn’t have a preference (or if they did, they didn’t voice them) so we headed to Fred Meyer.

We soon had our food and were headed back to the condo. The other advantage to getting food at Fred Meyer was that we’d be back in plenty of time to watch the Grammys. It was actually a pretty good Grammys show as we were treated to performances by Simon and Garfunkel (awesome acoustic guitar rendition of Sound of Silence), Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, Nora Jones (who cleaned up that night), Eminem, the Dixie Chicks, Cold Play (whose extremely passionate performance wasn’t appreciated much by the majority of the people in our condo), and Bruce Springsteen (who was also extremely passionate, or perhaps constipated, and not well received by most of the Moose Hollow audience).

Snowbasin Again
Monday found us back at Snowbasin. The previous day, we decided to take the shuttle from the parking lot to the main entrance. Being that it was our first time there, we thought that the entrance was far from the parking lot. After all, why else would they have a shuttle? Apparently, we discovered, there must be many lazy skiers and riders that frequent Snowbasin. The shuttle ride turned out to be quite ridiculous as the entrance was only a short walk away. We knew better this time and bypassed the shuttle.

Aaron, Kate, and myself decided to split off from the rest of the group who wanted to head on over to the Strawberry side of the mountain again. We wanted to explore some new terrain on the John Paul side of the mountain. Our first run showed that the area had lots of potential. At the beginning of our first run down, we initially hit some great trees with mostly untracked powder. But then, the good snow disappeared and it got kind of steep and crusty/icy in some parts. We spent the rest of the day going up and down the same general area between the John Paul, Needles, and Porcupine lifts. Porcupine (when it finally re-opened when they fixed the electrical issues) turned out to be totally awesome. We found some great snow between the trees. It was another great day!

Around 4 or so, we headed back to the cars. Most everyone grabbed their clothes and went back to the lodge to change. Ryan and I just changed in the car, and since we were done before everyone else, we took the opportunity to indulge in some chips and salsa while sitting in the car. I for one was starving so it definitely hit the spot!

Forgetful Aaron
Aaron’s memory must really be going. After forgetting his boots the day before, this time he forgot his watch and left it in the condo. At the end of the day, he called the condo and the lady there actually went out, found it, and put it in the key lock box where we picked it up as we headed back to the airport.

For dinner, we went to the Bangkok Chef which we knew was open on Mondays. The food was good for everyone with perhaps the exception of Kate who found her dish a tad too spicy. After dinner, we headed for the airport. It was snowing and the roads must have been very icy because we probably saw around 5 cars along the way who had spun out onto the side of the road.

We filled up the Flying J, got to the rental car return area of the airport, and sprawled out across the parking lot to repack our gear. The skis and snowboards had to go on the rack so we had to put them back in their bags. And most of us didn’t really fully pack up our gear at the resort. Since it was snowing, we just kind of threw everything into the back of the cars planning to reorganize at the airport.

Our flight was delayed around 45 minutes because they had to de-ice it. We all got back home without much of a hitch. Fortunately, Ryan wasn’t as forgetful as Aaron since this time he remembered to bring his club-lock key. Click for the pics.

Posted by Roger at 8:28 pm.