Please Sir, May I Have Some More?

Mar

A few years ago when it came to backcountry skiing, life didn’t exist outside the Cottonwood Canyons, or to be more precise, life didn’t exist outside of Little Cottonwood Canyon. But with the move to Kamas, my discovery of the Uintas, the dream of “built the skin track and they will come” that was my Mount Aire project to name a few spots and I’ve discovered that life is well lived outside the epicenter of the Wasatch. That’s not to say I haven’t fondly reminisced of my days there and the lines, both big and small, that I’ve ticked off the list. Let’s just say I’ve not made it a priority to get to LCC.

That is, until last week.

Wednesday the report was 2-3″ in the surrounding areas and 6-9″ in the epicenter. I could no longer deny it’s pull so I resisted the tractor beam of upper Little Cottonwood and happily set my sights for the epicenter for my first voyage of the season. My few text messages to generally willing partners yielded a shut out so I would be going solo. As such I chose the simple route – Days Fork via the Flagstaff directisima. I was well rewarded with 3 laps of stellar pow that on occasion got all over my face.

A LITTLE COTTONWOOD CLASSIC – Sunrise lighting up Cardiff and Superior

It was while soaking it in Wednesday afternoon that I booked my return flight to LCC for Thursday morning with a timely text to Daren hoping that I might have company…and company is what I got. 4 others to be exact, including a split boarder named Aaron that graciously endured my rants about my last experience with a split boarder. Thankfully, he would redeem split boarders for me.

I was surprised that we were first up the skin track on Flagstaff with another 3-4″ of fresh. Then again, it was a prime day to tag Superior and a number of guys were headed in that general direction. I knew Days would deliver and didn’t hesitate to keep to the plan. The skin track was extra slippery and most of us toiled a bit. The sunrise and views were a great diversion from the toil and anguish of the skinning.

(CLICK THE IMAGES TO SEE THEM LARGER)

After cresting Flagstaff and looking into Days Fork I knew it would be another classic Happy Days kind of day – 2-3″ of new on the south side with 6-10″ of new on the north side. The best part? We had it to ourselves. We all stood there with the uneasy elevator style “after you”, “no, please, after you” courtesy gestures to which I gladly offered up a “May I?” and dove in.

I’m not sure if it was Aaron or Adam who started to speak first, but when everyone had arrived at the bottom of Days I said something to the effect of “I think I’m gonna need more of that” to which they both cited, in unison the famous line from Oliver Twist: “Please sir, may I have some more?”.

And more we got…and were filled. Evidence: