Skiing the Wasatch Range

After a weekend of school, Staci joined me in SLC for a few days to relax and hit the slopes.  On Saturday evening, we took Uncle Dan, Aunt Margie, and Cousin Tori out to dinner.  It took a little convincing for Aunt Margie, but we decided to go to Market Street Grill.  Just for fun, we ordered some mussels as an appetizer, and the Aunt Margie's expression was priceless.  We didn't force her to have any, but she chose to do so on her own, and commented that they were "a little chewy."  Anyways, we had a good time that evening.  

On Monday, January 19th, Staci and I headed up to Park City and skied Deer Valley for the day. You can always count on Deer Valley to do a great job of grooming, and because of that, I was able to get in 29 runs and 33K vertical feet of skiing (as calculated by my SUUNTO).

On Tuesday, we stayed on the SLC side and cruised up Little Cottonwood Canyon to ski my favorite resort of all time, ALTA!  Almost a year has past since we were here last, when I had proposed to Staci right off of the Supreme Chairlift.  It was another great day of skiing, the temps were in the mid 30's, but I managed to only get in 30K vertical feet today.  On our way out of the canyon, we stopped off once again at the Cotton Bottom for Staci's garlic burger.  For those of you that don't know the Cotton Bottom, it is a dive biker bar that is know for their garlic burger.  Once again, I vow not to have another, I was burping up garlic all night long...

On Wednesday, our final day in SLC, I took Staci to Snowbird for the first time.  Reid, one of the guys in my study group, was able to get 1/2 priced tickets, so we went.  Staci not only didn't like Snowbird, but decided to get her point across by hitting a little icy spot, sliding out of control and took my legs out.  One of my new ski poles turned into a perfectly shaped "U".  Well, it was a good thing that it was titanium, and I was able to bend it back into its proper shape without it breaking or leaving a crease in the pole.  The highlight of the day for her was taking the Snowbird tunnel from Peruvian Gulch to Mineral Basin.  Well, we had to end early today as we had a 4:30pm flight back to SD, so I only logged 20K vertical feet today.  We made it back to SD just in time to go pick up Samson at the pets hotel, and we look forward to our next ski trip up there in a few weeks!