Report from January 18, 2023

I rolled up to Alta ski area, UT at about 10am on Thursday.

It didn’t snow overnight but the wind had been ripping when I left at 5:30pm the day before.

As I walked through the parking lot I wondered if there’d been enough wind to buff things out.

A local skier ripped a 26m radius turn with a big spray down High Rustler answering me in the affirmative.

Shit, I shoulda got here earlier…

The canyon was closed until 8:30am and that is usually a sign to me to roll in late.

“Shoulda been on first chair,” I thought to myself.

I tumbled into a crew of buddies:  Jamie, Benny, J.R., Chris, & Rick.

We had a ball arcing big turns down Hi Boy again and again.

Stoneman’s was rad with J.R & Chris.

The backside via Thirds was also splendidly powdery.

West Buffler was wind-buffed goodness a la Mammoth.

I was already exhausted by the time I went on my kicker search.

I told Rick I wanted to head to Wildcat and find a backflip jump.

He said he knew where 2 were.

The first he showed me had a rowdy AF run in and the local boys were throwing wild backflips off it.

That one looked too much for me.

The other was a human-created cheese wedge with a perfect, steep landing (thanks, Grace!).

On the first run, I eye-balled the hell out of it.

On the 2nd run, I studied a local guy throw a backflip.

That was it.

I felt dialed in.

I hiked back up to the start tree and caught my breath.

I decided not to speed check at all and I went flying!

I had to roll the windows down twice, open up fully, and ended up doing a soft backslap to tumble.

Low penalty, confidence surging.

Back on the chair.

Back on top of the inrun.

Smooth, deep breaths, visualize everything, repeating in my mind:  “Lay it out, you can’t under-rotate it.”

No speed check, went even bigger than last time, felt like forever before I saw the landing.

Layed out to the point of tails tapping helmet.

Finally saw the landing and did all I could to put down the landing gear as late as possible.

landed a touch backseat, stomped it, and rolled through the runout with hoots in my throat.

So fired up…

So exhausted…

I cut hard right and took the groomer to the base and directly to the car.

These were the 3 best days of high-performance skiing I’ve had in a while:

• Tuesday – Bad News Double Drop
• Wednesday – Tounge Mai (Church) Double Drop x2
• Thursday – 2 big backflips

I drove home feeling extremely grateful.

One helluva great week at Alta after that 86″ storm total.

Thanks, Utah!

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