Nice Overproducer

There's gonna be some great skiing out there today.  The Utah Avalanche Center reports 12-17" in Big Cottonwood and 16-20" in Little Cottonwood.  That makes this storm a nice little overproducer and puts it into Goldilocks territory.  Radar still shows some snowshowers this morning. 

I decided to skip this morning's powder panic in the canyons and instead reflect back on yesterday, which provided a great example of why I prefer a dusk patrol over a dawn patrol.

I woke up with the frontal passage and enjoyed a breakfast of Tirolean Kaiserschmarrn, a high-density pancake that one shouldn't eat unless large calories are needed for ski touring.  Seeing the snow was just beginning, I enjoyed a morning tea and watched the World Cup finals.  No globe for Shiffrin this year, but it's hard not to like Austrian Katherina Liensberger who soars through slalom gates with a big smile on her face and won the slalom globe and final race of the season.  

I then topped up with a light lunch before picking up my son a bit after noon.  No traffic and, during our tour, we saw only two people in an area that often sees many.  

I figured even after waiting for the snow to stack up we'd be doing a lot of bottom feeding, but the high-density snow was just what one could hope for and smoothed things out more than expected.  Low expectations are the key to a happy life.  

It turns out that Liensberger is onto something.  Smiling really does make you a better skier.

I mentioned the snow was high density, but that's relative to average for Utah.  At Alta, the average water content of freshly fallen snow is 8.4%. Observations from the fancy "DEID" instrument run by the University of Utah at Alta-Collins (9700 feet) showed about 11% water content through 5 PM MDT yesterday.   

Such snow is perfect for a spring storm when sun crusts abound and must be buried.  It made for surprisingly good skiing and I suspect it will ski even better today after more snow overnight.