This weekend I had a chance to tag a few sick lines at Snowbasin. More and more terrain has opened up over the past two weeks and not enough snow has fallen to keep me from exploring and hiking.
On Saturday I hit the Fingers Chute #2 for my first run of the day. No this was not my intended warm up, but oh well. The snow was variable inside the steep narrow chute, but I made it down to the exit, which is about 2 feet wide with uncovered rocks to be jumped, just fine. I lined up my exit, hit the small air, and straight lined out through the apron of untouched snow. It was so fun that I continued to haul for about 250 feet. As I was probably going about 40 mph, I either hit a buried avy snow chunk or a pocket of air under the surface, and the next thing I know, I was hurling through the air and completed a 3 1/2 rotation ragdoll. Easily the worst crash I've had thus far. As I was completing my first 1 1/2 rotations, I thought to myself, "this hill isn't steep enough to continue ragdolling." Yeah I was wrong. I ragdolled so hard that the inside of my goggles were completely filled with snow. Yeah I laid there for a good 30 secs. Unfortunately Bryan, who was shooting photos, didn't catch that last part as I had slipped out of the reach of his camera when travelling in the chute.
I definitely tweaked my ankle and bruised my fibula and calf as my skis did not release and ended up being the torquing point of my boots into my leg. I'm lucky that my $2000 camera in my backpack was not damaged in the fall. Yeah what a wonderful warm-up result; nailed the chute, the exit, and the first 250 feet of the apron straighline. The final 90 feet of ragdolling was what kicked my butt. I probably should have called it a day after that first run, but I pushed on with the good soft snow.
Here are a few more pics thanks to Bryan Smith. He really has an eye for the snow shots.
Me entering the Fingers Chute
Mount Ogden Towers
Looking down into Heller's
Skiing the variable snow in Heller's
Looking back up at Heller's
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