The Best Damn Craphouse In The West.

It’s a cliché to say that everything in America is bigger and better. Well, when it comes to mountain facilities, they are. At least, they are in Snowbasin mountain resort.

Without wanting to single any one nation out, such as France. Were you to go to a European resort and enjoy a spot of refreshment on the piste, then require a modicum of relief before resuming on your merry (literally) way, you might find yourself in a European style ‘pissoire’. We've all been there, but for those not fortunate enough to have sampled the delights of these establishments let me set the scene.

Firstly, one is greeted by a smell that one would usually associate with far more temperate conditions than those found at the top of a frozen alp. Then of course there’s the gnomic local type who scowls menacingly at you on the way in. He will demand at least a euro for the honour of utilising his little hole in the floor, hit or miss. There may be washing facilities, but they will be ice cold and lack any soap or drying equpiment.

If you suddenly decide you need another little post-repast trickle before leaping into the unknown once again, the resident cave dweller will demand a further deposit into his little saucer, which, for appearances he keeps sprinkled with a smattering of five cent coins in an attempt to make you feel guilty.

Contrast this then with the opulence pictured above. Free to use, spacious, marble floored, oak panelled tinkle-emporiums. A host of private booths for the weary boarder to relax in. Scented air conditioning that removes any beastly malodorous residue. The washrooms, replete with fresh soap, warm water and full size polished mirrors for which to adjust the look before returning to the excellent dining rooms above and what’s this? hand towels, tissues and moisturiser. It's all to much.

Why can’t every hillside chop houses be this nice? Thank you Snowbasin, it’s been a pleasure.

* the picture above is by design limited to an unused section of the toilet facilities, for reasons of taste and decorum.

p.s. The resturants have chandaliers.

Rhodri.

Board senseless.

The boys put their steeds out to pasture after a hard day in the saddle.

It's been emotional!

Phil relaxes after a hard day in bed.

The Drugs Don't Work.

Oh yes they do!

After a week and a half of progressive deterioration to your body, you reach the stage where getting up and going out on a hill can become a bit of a chore. Bruises, muscular strains and the general turmoil caused by constant tumbling into increasingly (it seems) hard snow accumulate to a degree that can cause even a fit young man like myself to become weary.

Well, the solution is at hand, toothache. Yes, acquire yourself a spot of dental aggravation. Then all you have to do is make a visit to the local tooth quack, let them butcher your gums and chops for a couple of hours and hey presto, they sign you a prescription for the special stuff as a means of assuaging their guilt. Job done. One minute you’re a couple of steps away from being a snow zombie, let the special stuff kick in and you’re away with the pixies. Chirpy, pain free and eager to get back in the saddle. Just don’t forget to keep taking them, one each every six hours.

Rhodri.

The Huntsville Races

After a draw in the sledge round, the boys decided to tackle the downhill course using the snowboards. Standing up seemed far too run-of-the-mill for these professionals, so they opted for the less well-known but highly complex seated position. Phil thought he had it in the bag until Rod pipped him in the final few yards (before promptly disappearing into a hole, never to be seen again). Many thanks to the warm-up man Glyn for showcasing his excellent snow-clearing skills before the event.

Breckenridge Montage

See Salt Lake City and die……(of boredom)

It’s not that bad really; perhaps we were spoilt by Denver last year.

The day started early at six o’clock to try and watch the weekends rugby. We had formulated a plan to circumnavigate the broadcasting rights issues that prevents the BBC showing the game outside the UK which seemed to work for a while, however the piece of wet string that connects the United States of America with the United Kingdom must have been particularly busy this morning, so in the end we settled for a radio commentary, still a little Norman Collieresque, but acceptable. The Welsh Monkeys found the going a bit tense at times, however, justice was served and the boys managed to hold out for a win. My punishment/prize for this outcome was to wear a comedy “Irish, Pint of View” tee-shirt around Salt Lake City for the day. This upset me a bit (once I’d registered the fact that we’d won) as I thought I’d be ridiculed by the thousands of people milling around this great metropolis. How wrong can you be? (About the metropolis, not the ridicule)

So, the second part of the rugby weekend was a bit of a disappointment. English Monkeys we let down by their team in a damp squib of a game. This disappointment paled into insignificance however when we found out that Mr Darcy’s flight had been cancelled. Thanks for that. The poor lad had to face the double whammy of having to miss a whole day snowboarding and to spend precious holiday time in Manchester. Poor bugger, at least he can pretend to be Scottish/Cornish for the day.

Considering we’d “ripped the hill”* for the last five days, Phil, Ash, Nick and I (Rod) decided to have a day out in the big city and rest our weary muscles. Unfortunately we were nowhere near one, so we had to make do with Salt Lake City. Having said that we nearly didn’t make it at all as I confused the dashboard mounted automatic gear-shift on our rental shed for a Volvo style windscreen wiper at sixty miles an hour. Cars don’t like being put in reverse at that speed and ours was no exception. At first I thought I’d made metal porridge out of the gearbox. Seemingly we lost all power and coasted to a silent halt. Miles from nowhere (Salt Lake City again!) I started to feel that dodgy sinking sensation you get when you’ve really screwed something up. Luckily it had just stalled and, rather sheepishly, I turned the key, popped it into drive and off we went. Under the circumstances I think the lads were very understanding considering I was the one who set the brakes alight earlier in the week.

Salt Lake City held the winter Olympics in 2002. The casual visitor might not know this, but veteran travellers with an eye for detail who have spent some time in the area (anything over ten seconds) will notice that Salt Lake Cityans (Saltys?) are quite proud of this. It's everywhere and you start to realise it's the only thing of any note the city have to offer a visitor. Consequently, they mention it a bit, it's still on every bus, sticker, police car, pavement, urinal, tramp, etc, etc. well done Utah, you had the Olympics. I presume they want to squeeze every ounce of mileage out of the cash they had to bribe the IOC with (Along with every other city who wants the games).

Having parked up opposite the “Energy Solutions Arena”, home of the Utah Jazz, (Make up your own jokes at this point) we went in search of fun and adventure. We left about two hours later having whiled away our time with a pleasant meal, a tour of Dicks sporting Goods, a trudge down an identikit shopping mall and a firm resolution to steer clear of all religious paraphernalia. There was an abortive attempt to buy tickets for the Jazz’s game against the Denver Nuggets, which started at seven pm, but they were sold out.

Back in the car and off we went up to Ogden, home of the fast food outlet, by now spirits were starting to flag so we enjoyed a nice Chinese Meal before heading back to check the internet for sports results. (I still can’t quite believe we stuck one on the trotters).

Oh. One last thing, for those expecting postcards, I bought some today and will fill them in when I get the chance.


Utah Jazz Basketball team.

http://www.nba.com/jazz/index_main.html

*a cool way of saying pootled gently about.

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The Treeminator.

Contrary to initial reports, it now seems the tree suffered massive trunk trauma. Forensic experts have matched the wound to the toe edge of an expertly ridden Burton Bullet Snowboard that may have been slightly out of control.

Re-live the fateful day.

Pictures* are just coming in of the Evans crash. Note the fallen logs crushing his tender frame.



*Pictures are a reconstruction of actual events.

Wheels on fire, rolling down the road.

You could say it was an eventful day. Our intention was to try out some of the other mountains before the boys arrived on Wednesday. With this in mind we set out for the evocatively named Powder Mountain. This hill was a twenty minute drive up the valley and included ‘The steepest paved road in Utah’ as a local Nostradamus warned us. No problem for me matey boy. I used to live in Pontypridd. Indeed, the drive up was quite tame by Welsh standards, if a bit longer than I was used to. So, sure enough twenty minutes later we arrive at a tiny looking resort, buy our tickets and set off up the two-man chair (Circa 1930’s). Scanning the piste map our mild confusion turned to disgust as we realised the half-mile green run to the start of the main ski area was essentially uphill. Not good on a snowboard, where your only motive power is gravity. (Note to any Americans reading this: Local library, Isaac Newton, Gravity).
Once we’d negotiated that run(On foot mostly) we realised we’d parked at the wrong place, and from there, things looked up.

The snow which had been an occasional flake during the morning increased in frequency throughout the day, becoming heavy at times during the afternoon. This in turn covered the runs with plenty of fresh powder. The resort appeared deserted. I would estimate less than 200 people were on the hill, indeed you could complete a two mile run without seeing another rider. When you compare the resources, and resorts here with some of the Euro favourites, where you have to wait twenty five minutes to get a lift, it makes you wonder why you’d ever go back.

So, the runs are fantastic, the resort is empty and it snows a lot. It’s inevitable then that we all agreed that this was the best day’s riding we’d ever had. Not top five or ‘one of the best’ type days. This was it, best ever. One run was particularly memorable, ‘Secret’ was its name and it claimed to be a ‘Powder run’ which means the whole area was unpisted and with lots of trees and undulations. It looked like we were some of the first people to get down it all day. What a ride it was, full chat, shooting trees, gouts of snow flying off our boards, leaning back get the tip up, no stopping ‘till we reached the bottom and joined the next run. Amazing. We’re going back again tomorrow in case it was all a dream.

Eventually we had to leave, not as easy as it sounds for a number of reasons. Already we’d lost Ash for a while as he had to pop down the hill to get a new strap for his bindings. Then Kev left his rucksack in the lodge, so had to drop back over the other side of the hill to pick it up. Then, the rest of us took a wrong turn and ended up right at the bottom of the hill again (cartography isn’t a strong point in powder mountain). When we finally all joined up at the car the fun really started.

It’s a long way down the mountain I’ll grant you, nonetheless, I didn’t expect the slightly strange juddering that came from the brakes turn into flames when I stopped to see whether there was ‘something wrong with the tire’. Having lots of snow available at the side of the road can be beneficial in some very unexpected ways.

Back at the house, a quick shower and we’re off again. This time we’re going to Salt Lake City to pick up our new gear.

Gear details for the technically minded.

Rod;
Rome Anthem Snowboard
Burton Cartel Bindings.
Ash;
Arbor Alt Snowboard
Burton Cartel Bindings.
Phil
DC Judge boots.
Kev
Smith Prodigy goggles
Nick
Burton Concept Fleece.

Finally the long day was topped off with a trip to a Salt Lake City Brewpub for steaks and beer. (Except for me as it was my turn to drive)

What a great day.

Rhodri.

Hill profile of the first day's riding.

Here's a profile of the first day's rides.

Ashesius' Iliad - Part One

As it is now our second full day in 'The US of A', it is overdue time for a blog post from Ash, or Iliad as they shall be known from now on. In this ditty, I shall be commenting on our journey so far - from airport to Wendy's burger and gas station to Trapper's Monastery.

Our odyssey began prosaically enough with a relaxing check-in and 'Bridge Breakfast' (which differed from a Full English in that it had two rashers of bacon - surely that should be standard?) before boarding the BA flight to San Francisco. To be fair, the flight was manageable considering it's 10 hourness. The A/V experience was nearly flawless with a myriad selection of new films, TV shows and music (I watched the new Coens' flick and various animated jocularity).

San Francisco was where the fun really started. At the initial immigration check, I was flagged for not filling in my papers correctly and sent the the 'Questioning Office' while the other boys passed through without trouble. I was grilled by the besuited Homeland Security types over trivialities such as:

Homeland Security Fascist: 'Have you been to Pakistan?'
Innocent Traveller: "[Smirk] Errr no..."
HSF: 'Have you been to the Middle East?'
IT: "I've been to Egypt four times [sharp inhalation - why did I freely give away potentially incriminating evidence?]"
HSF: 'Has your passport been through the wash?'
IT: "Yeah, how did you notice that? [note to self dont ask them questions in case it offends them and they reach for the rubber gloves]"
HSF: 'Where else have you been that isnt on your passport?'
IT: "Ukraine - the stamp has washed off [stop telling them about non-Western countries you've visited Ash!]"
HSF: 'When is your flight out? How do I know you're going to leave?'
etc etc

After twenty minutes or so of this I was permitted entry, only to find that Kev's luggage had been mis-placed...

You know when you've been Spango'd
Fortunateley for the boys, Kev's luggage was returned by some miscreant after two hours of advanced fretting. This gave us sufficient time for a quick beer (San Francisco's Anchor Steam) before boarding our final flight of the day to Salt Lake City (SLC, Sometimes Licked Concrete or Shaven Liqourice Chapel). This Aviary sojourn was made most pleasant by the slightly condescending yet friendly japes of our hostess air steward Hao Li. Oh how we laughed when she asked us "Are you cold" knowing full well the answer would be "I'm hot" given the soaring temperature...

I anticipate no less controversy on the return journey.

Ash

Phil Goes Boarding

Unstoppable Force v Immovable Object

And the winner is……….Immovable object.

To clarify, the unstoppable force in this instance was I (Rhodri). The immovable object was and still is a dead pine tree at the top of John Paul. It looked fairly straightforward, a nice steep drop through some fresh powder, shooting a couple of trees before joining the piste a little further on.

“This looks good” I recall saying to Nick before pointing myself downhill. To cut a long story short, I missed the gap and despite turning at the last second managed to hit the tree sideways on. (The board turned but I didn’t) Luckily my ribs and arse took the full brunt of the impact. It all became a bit confusing for a few seconds as I struggled to establish whether I was hurt, winded or properly damaged. Hurt and winded I realised after a few essential checks.

I think the impact was fairly significant. Phil claims to have heard the crash from about sixty meters away and the collision knocked quite a few branches off the once proud pine. You lose all dignity on such occasions, you can’t speak and you're gasping for breath, your crumpled body look like a crane fly that’s been through a Dyson and humiliatingly (in my case) I appeared to be dressed up as a small bonfire.

Anyway, I was able to carry on down the hill so I presume I’ve not broken anything. It aches like buggery though. Ultimately I decided my board was to blame, so it’s off to the shops tomorrow to buy a new one.

One snowboard, a tub of Tylenol and some Nurofen Gel please.

Maybe we’ll revisit the scene of the crime later in the week and take some pictures. Re-enact the piece for posterity.

Rhodri.

p.s. I think I'll get one of these. It's a Rome Anthem for those who know about these things.

http://www.romesnowboards.com/product/boards/anthem/

You've seen the best. Now try the rest ;-)

Visit the guys over at Brek and catch up on all the action.

http://andrewmoss.blogspot.com/

Tramp Juice

There's a run at Snowbasin called White Lightning. We missed it today so I'm going to make sure I make a point of riding it next time we go there, along with its close neighbours Special Brew and Tennents Super.

Phil

Deep and crisp. Uneven!

First day on the hill couldn’t have been better. It’s already being talked about as an ‘All time top five day’ , even before the rosy glow of faded recollection elevates it status even higher.

Snowbasin isn’t really a resort, not in the European “Destination Resort” sense of the word. It feels much more like a locals hill and it’s this clandestine nature that makes it a such fantastic place to visit. It's a secret stash and we were the only Europeans we came across. On top of that it’s a really pretty mountain with a good mixture of gradients reminiscent of Sunshine Village in Canada, for those that have visited.

The resort only has seven lifts, which you wouldn’t expect to be enough, but somehow, it is. Maybe because two of them are high speed, eight man gondolas, that whisk you to the top of the hill in double quick time, you don’t seem to notice as much.

Snowbasin Mountain is no Val d’Isere, with a huge roaming expanse of trails. What it does have is a compact and varied massif, with more than enough to keep you occupied. A large part if this can be put down to the nature of the mountain and the delightful unpisted areas that link every run. Almost everything within the ski boundary is rideable and the nature of North American natural forest is such that trips between the trees are a real joy. We had a magnificent time bouncing around the powder through open, yet interesting terrain.

The sun shone all the through the day and snow was almost perfect, plenty of fresh powder with just a couple of icy patches on piste.

As usual with the US the lodges are fine and not too crowded, we haven’t tried the food yet as we’re saving ourselves for the famous “Shooting Star Starburger” tonight but we did treat ourselves to some local ale. I have to say America has really woken up to beer in the last few years, we had a local wheat beer, “Blue Moon” which tasted great, not the pasteurised muck they’ve been peddling as ‘real ale’ in the recent past.

Everyone managed a couple of spills during the day, commensurate with hours of tooling around in powder, I saved mine ‘till the last run. Until that point I’d been feeling a little smug about being the ‘last man standing’. As we all know, pride comes before a fall, quite literally in this case. It was a splendid effort, I turned confidently into a little steep powdery drop off, caught the front of the board and did a couple of wonky cartwheels down the hill. No injuries, just a quick look around to see if anyone had spotted my mishap, before I was off again to more or less repeat the trick thirty seconds later. Did I mention my hipflask had become mysteriously empty at about the same time.

More of the same tomorrow hopefully.

Breakfast of Champions

The boys enjoy a home cooked breakfast.

The view outside our door.

Snowbasin, from the sun deck.

We've arrived.

Well, we’ve arrived. The journey was a bit of a struggle and not without incident, however I think our attitude can be summed up with “All’s well that ends well.”.

The eleven hour flight from Heathrow was, well, an eleven hour flight from Heathrow. Our relief at arriving at San Francisco was tempered somewhat by the non-arrival of Kevin’s bag. He spent an hour and a half queuing, filling in forms and trying to keep calm before finally giving up and moving over to the internal flight, at which point the bag turned up. Someone had taken it, realised their mistake when they tried to check it on another plane and handed it back. Luckily for them we didn’t get to find out who they were, or where they lived.

The flight from Frisco to Salt Lake was interesting. Having spent eleven hours on a 747, it was interesting to spend an hour and a half on something you could fit in your garage.

Buggered up by now, we squeezed everyone in the car (just) and made our way to Huntsville via the local Wal-Mart and Wendys. We finally made it to the house about 11:00.

We’ll post some stuff later on the house, suffice to say, it’s stunning. The location is awesome and the views are incredible.

Catch you later.

Rhodri.

Would you like any pepper with that?

“Yes please! And a spot of that lovely parmesan cheese if you would.”

Condiments, the piquant seasonings and spicy flavours that add a final touch of magic to any meal. The key to the art of complimentary condiments is to match the spice to the dish. Think of fish and chips and you can already smell the salt and vinegar. Aficionados wouldn’t think of starting out on their sausage egg and chips without a spot of tomato ketchup on the side and where would the true gourmand be without their HP sauce? France, probably.

But what about coffee and pepper? Unusual to say the least. Well, this was the adventurous direction taken by one anonymous Powder Monkey early yesterday morning as they sleepily added a sachet of what they presumed to be sugar to a large steaming cup of latte.

A spot of muttering and a some remedial spooning soon recovered the situation to drinkable levels, however this did set off some interesting trains of thought.

The arena of beverage personalisation is currently dominated by the giant that is sugar. Cubed, white, brown, crystallised and Demerara, it truly is a crystal for all occasions. It doesn’t always have things its own way though. A few years ago a couple of the Monkeys enjoyed a delicious cup of hot chocolate flavoured with chilli pepper. All agreed it was a masterpiece. But where would you go from there, what unusual condimentary opposites might attract? A spot of garlic in your tea? A spot of salad dressing in your tomato soup? Probably not.

As always, the lessons are simple ones, read the label. Right where’s that cup of hot buttered Horlicks?