Utah MTB

Archive for the ‘Diary’ Category

by Bill Messick

I wasn’t planning on skiing today but I woke up to a foot of powder in my driveway and the next thing I knew I was on my way up the mountain. Strange thing is there was more powder in the valley than there was on the mountain at Sundance! There was about 4-6 inches when I got to the top of the lift, still it was good stuff. I did get a little video today and took a few min to cut it into a music video using the music of Courtesy Blush with their song “Sun Divider”.

Check out the video for more.

by Bill Messick

Today Jason and I took Bubby out of school so he could ditch class in the powder, well It didn’t start off that way! We get up to leave about 11:30 am and it is 57 degrees outside and sunny, that can’t be good on the snow! We get up there and get a few runs in and it starts to snow and it snowed heavy leaving the nicest powder you could ask for all over a mountain with hardly anyone skiing it. Yea we got to play in the fresh stuff today, not much about 3-6 inches but fresh right out of the snow factory in the sky. Bubby did pretty good today even in the powder that he is so scared of!

Check out the video for more on this trip.

Today was hot! It was about 47 degrees on the top today, that is snow melting hot! So me and Jason took a trip up to Sundance for a few hours and got burnt on the mountain. I did get a few photos and about 2 min worth of video, in the video someone is hurt and a girl makes her jump.

Check out the video and photos for more.

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by Bill Messick

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I didn’t get any video or photos so enjoy the song Everywhere by Neverwonder and visit them at http://www.neverwonder.com tell them I sent you!

I got up early today and got up to Sundance as it opened, to catch the 6 inches of fresh powder that had dropped since yesterday. There was a bunch of people with the same idea as me, the parking lot was filling up fast. It was rather warm up their today, clear at the base and in a sock at the top. The top was covered in the clouds for the three hours I was there.

It was so thick I had to spend most my time skiing through the trees so I had a point of reference to focus on. Every time I would run out into the open I would get snow blind and loose site of everything, it was crazy up there.

The powder was a fresh six inches and still falling and the temp was crazy warm making the snow heavy. I saw and came across a dozen avalanches on the catwalks and between the trees on the steep stuff. At one point I was skiing down a chute and as I made a turn on the edge a saw the snow flowing down the center of the chute right above me, so I pointed myself down and raced the slide to the bottom making it just ahead of the river of snow! I love days like this, you never know what to expect next!

by Bill Messick

You could say Jason has taken his falls on the narrows in the Pipeline up at Sundance, in fact one day he knocked himself out there. Every time we ski through the Pipeline he gets to the same spot and has a pretty nasty fall. Last week he twisted his knee in this ominous place and today just like every time down he fell in the same spot! So we took one more hit down Bishops Bowl taking a moment for him to rest on the catwalk on the edge of the Pipeline before dropping into his own hell run. Well I got him to slow things down and take his time getting to the squeeze spot, as he hit it you can see in the video he just works his way past the bad spot in his mind and finish the run without a single fall!

Check out the video and see for yourself, don’t miss the cool pics from this day.

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by Bill Messick

To get to Marmott Gulch you have to take off your skis and climb for about 10 min up the hill on your right as you get off Ray’s Lift at the summit. They have this marked as a Black Diamond but I would class it closer to a double black. It is a tight fast drop through a very steep and narrow gully.

Check out the video for more on this run.

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by Bill Messick

You don’t get to see me skiing much, I’m usually behind the camera but Jason has got good enough to ski with his camera and posted this video on his YouTube account.

by Bill Messick

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I have added a new category called Audio so I can include audio files like music and voice. Today it is music or more like the soundtrack of today, this is the song that stuck in my head after an amazing day in the powder.

It all started when I woke up to snow flakes coming down outside and at that moment I knew I was in for some of the Greatest Snow On Earth as it use to say on my Utah license plate.Now It says some crap about getting high or life elevated, yea I think it is the second one! So I go pick up Jason and we head up the canyon to Sundance to try and get our share of the mountain full of new white fluffy stuff before a snowboarder takes it from us. Being Friday Sundance was ramping up for a busy day and night of skiing. The bus ride from the upper parking lot was standing room only, and lucky me got a seat right in front of a girl with the biggest butt I ever had to stare at for the two minute ride to the base. It was a bad in your face moment!

We get to the base and load onto Ray’s Lift and head for the backside of the mountain and grab the next lift to the top. When we get there it is snowing hard and there is a good foot of fresh powder down and I’m talking the lightest stuff money can buy! A little background on Jason, he has skied a little years ago but I would call him a beginner till now. See I have gave him the basic tools to learn how to ski and he has learned to use them in the right places and times. You really don’t teach someone to ski, you show them how and they teach themselves from that point on. Sure I have pushed his limits but he has adapted very well and now is moving into an intermediate skier.

Today was a turning point for him I believe. For the last run he wanted to ski down Amy’s Ridge all the way down to Grizzly Ridge and down Tombstone a very intimidating black diamond that until today was beyond his capabilities. Well everything down went pretty good and when we got to the crest of Tombstone we stopped and talked about where the best line was. For a moment as we dropped into the bowl I was sure he was going to be eating the snow but as he went into his first turn I saw him let go a little. He wasn’t going to fall this time, I was right on his tale as he made his turns and picked his lines and at that point I could see he had moved out of the beginner stage of skiing! He was doing it and not with the jerky out of control turns he had been doing the last few weeks but with grace and confidence.

I guess the 4-5 days a week for the past few weeks has really paid off for him!