Day 9: Bluebird Snowbird Day

The next morning we woke up early so we could take advantage of the free breakfast and make it out to our next basecamp so I could unload necessary items such as my violin and computers before we headed out for our first day of Utah skiing.

Our hosts for the next few days in Salt Lake City were my friend Benton, his girlfriend Briana, and her brother Kyle. Benton was another connection I had made during my time in Telluride last year and is a fantastic skier. We had had a great time skiing together in the past so I was super pumped to get to do so again in a new place, especially since SLC was his new hometown hill for the season.

Now Utah is said to have the greatest snow on earth. They are so confident in their claim that they actually put it on all their license plates. Even as you look at the snow driving o the mountain or off the chair, it has a beautiful sparkly characteristic that occurs from the flakes being so incredibly large. Neither Grant nor I had ever had the chance to ski out there to see if it the claim was true, so this day would be our special Utah cherry poppin’ day.

Benton and Briana are generally forest fire fighters and had taken the season off from work to take advantage of the half-off season pass special Snowbird has for our nation’s finest. They were experts on where all the good spots were at the resort and were great guides as they took us around the mountain.

We ended up skiing in the morning on the sunny side of the mountain: Mineral Basin. This was after I completed one of my life’s greatest goals, which was to ride one of those magic carpets that they have on the super beginner’s run. Except it was way cooler than I could have ever anticipated. The magic carpet went through a tunnel that they had blasted through the mountain. I was almost giddy with excitement as I road the magic carpet for the entire 4 minutes it took to get to the other side. Magic carpet on bucketlist. . . . check mark!

The rest of the day, after the sun had warmed up the snow on the front side, we went out and skied the Peruvian Gulch for several laps. I found some nice trees to duck into where I found some soft powder to go through. Trees + powder + my new skis made me one happy girl!

Afterward, we had a few après-ski beverages in the basement bar before heading home to make a delicious spaghetti dinner. It didn’t take long before everyone slipped blissfully into a ski-tired and bellyful-of-food coma for the night. I think we all dreamed happily about how great the day had been.