Turns All Year: Chapter 1

Rolling October and November into one post since I only rode two days in October and I don't feel like doing two standalone posts. Here we go...

October (Month 108)

I almost thought October turns wouldn't happen. A forecasted storm for around the 18th under delivered and there wasn't anything particularly good looking in the forecast after that. Generally my rule for getting out after a storm that falls on bare ground is the Collins Snotel needs to read 16" snow depth for turns to be possible without being too hazardous to make it worth it. The mid month storm came in well short of that threshold. There's an exception to every rule.

It seemed the only option for October turns would be to hike Timpanogos. Which sounded pretty miserable. Luckily before I subjected myself to that, a friend reached out saying Guardsman's Pass was ridable. Desperate times call for desperate measures. A recon drive up Big Cottonwood showed that there was about 3" of crusty, frozen snow with lots of grass poking through. Against all odds, and against all my rules, it actually worked. I think the snow being frozen crust made it possible. October turns were out of the way on the 23rd and the streak lived on for another month. 

 

On the evening of Halloween, I got out for the first Alta tour of the fall up to the top of Collins, where there was actually enough snow to make a handful of pretty decent pow turns. 

November (Month 109)

I got out as often as I could in November. We had a decent amount of storms roll through but nothing was really big. It seemed like every trough went too far south and brought all the bigger numbers to Colorado. Everyone should go to Colorado this winter. It looks fantastic over there. Utah sucks so if you'r reading this go to Colorado instead.

Despite the lack of "big" storms, there were a few really great days in November in the high elevations of Little Cottonwood Canyon. If you could avoid the rocks, things rode real nice. The resorts being open to uphill helps a lot too. Basically I used November to tour myself back in shape and went as often as I could even if conditions were shit. 

We finally got a larger storm the week of Thanksgiving, but it has been high pressure ever since. We've been stuck under a rex block for the last week (high pressure on top of low pressure). This pattern can be really hard to break and the forecast hasn't looked super promising. Hopefully things change and we start getting storms. Hopefully our snowpack isn't too fucked for too long. I'm not one of those people that gets mad about early season snowfall. Take what you get and don't pitch a fit. We almost always have a persistent weak layer during the early phases of our season here in the Wasatch. We'll just have to wait and see how things play out.