"Tough Chick Ski Day" or "Mommy Ski Day Out" (but that doesn't sound cool)

Last Friday I had the chance to hit the slopes with my old friend and previous "Team Wasatch" ski buddy, Millie Fox and two other mom's Amberlee and Leslie. Two days before Park City had received 24 inches of new snow! So as you can imagine it was a beautiful winter wonderland with soft powder and snow covered trees. So beautiful. Anybody that hates winter needs to get themselves a pair of skis and head up to the ski resorts for some good old fashioned outdoors pick me up! It is so beautiful!!!! It also helped that the sun was shining brightly and we had clear skies the entire day.

Millie was anxious to get her money's worth of runs in since skiing isn't cheap. I could tell she meant business when we hit Thayne's (a steep mogul run) for our first 'warm up run.' And then it was off to Jupiter Bowl.

Leslie has not skied as much as us and is more comfortable on the groomers so we split up from Amberlee and Leslie to hitch a ride on Jupiter lift which accesses only double black diamonds with no "easy way down."After a run down Portuguese gap (pictured below with Millie at the top) we noticed that a snowmobiler was taking skiers up to the top of Pinecone ridge. (a south eastern facing slope accessed only by hiking or if you are really lucky a snowmobile). Pinecone ridge was barely tracked with all the new snow so we asked for a ride from the snowmobile guy and he said, "Maybe if you meet me up on the saddle between Scott's bowl and Pinecone ridge you'll get a ride."

Gitty at the hopes of getting a ride to ski untracked powder we hopped on the jupiter two seater lift.

On the Jupiter two seater lift.

At the top we made our way to Scott's bowl gaining as much speed as we could to bring us farther up the slope of the edge of Scotts. With the hopes of cutting our hike time as much as we could. Our attempts at this speed were interrupted to say the least by the giant dips and bumps the wind drifts had created. So we did what we had to do and released our bindings and heaved our skis to our shoulder and began the hike. The view from up there is something to behold. A 360 degree view of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The next canyon over a view right into Alta which looked like it had it's fair share of awesome skiing that day too. (I couldn't stop to take a picture of this unfortunately).

With Millie in the lead I stepped one step after the other pausing only briefly at the top to take a picture of Millie before we hooked back in and began our traverse across the bowl to the saddle the snowmobile guy told us about.

Millie at the top of Scott's Bowl.

The saddle wasn't hard to miss since a handful of other snowboarders and skiers were waiting there with hopes of a ride. Too bad for all of us he had just been caught by his manager and apparently giving rides is a no no. So we began the hike with some other brave souls.

The beginning of the hike to Pinecone Ridge.

This is about the point where the only thing tough about "Tough Chick Ski Day" was Millie. At about the half way point I made the decision to stop hiking and save some of my leg strength for the rest of the ski day. Hiking in heavy ski boots in snow while carrying your skis and poles is a strength test in and of itself. And my legs were burning. Millie on the other hand kept on going (not surprising considering she has run marathons and competed in the Spud Man Triathlon). She is unstoppable.

As she continued her hike I made my way over to a point where I had a good view of where she would be coming down. While I waited I took in the scenery and snapped some shots.

Scott's bowl that we had just traversed to reach the base of the Pinecone ridge hike.

The little skiiny opening in the trees that you see a little to left of the center of this picture Is Portuguese Gap. Where we skied our first run of Jupiter Bowl that day.

And here a picture of some other hikers and Scott's Bowl again in the background.

After awhile I saw Millie appear at the top of the ridge and raise her poles to signal that she was ready. Cool I can video this. I pulled out my little camera that has no zooming capabilities and got this short clip of Millie skiing the powder.

After that run which I did get to ski a bit of we made it back down to the lift where we saw a guy laying flat on his back surrounded by people and blood everywhere. Apparently he had hit his head on a tree and it didn't look good. Unfortunately he wasn't wearing a helmet. I don't know what became of this guy but they loaded him up in the ski patrol wagon and I hope he is ok.

We took one more run up Jupiter and down Jupiter ridge and met up farther down the mountain with Amberlee and Millie for lunch. We had packed a few munchies so we just bought some french fries and enjoyed our outside table in the sun.

The rest of the day was spent skiing the run that follows right under the McConkey's lift where some half decent mogul lines were forming.

Here's a short video clip of one of those runs with Millie in the lead. Followed by me. And then Amberlee. Thanks to Leslie for filming it!

To top off the day we took some fast groomers and then the last run of the day. Which at Park City is always Home Run. I saw some little guys skiing with their instructor about Bentley's age. I thought of how fun it is to go skiing with him and missed the little bugger.

After the long ride down home run we hit the rolling jumps on Pay Day before heading to our cars. It was a great day. Great snow, great weather and great gals to ski with.