A few weeks ago, we finally saw our first substantial storm of the season. Blue skies and high pressure gave way to storm clouds and heavy winds, and we were more than ready for the change.

The first morning of the storm, I jumped out of bed, hopeful that there would be snow stacked a foot high in our back yard. Instead, we were greeted by this:

While sad, I was a little excited at the prospect of getting to break out my sawzall for something useful, instead of my annual tradition of carving pumpkins with power tools.

Side note: You can fit two trees in a standard 64 gallon trash bin if you save the bigger pieces for firewood.

Once the drama of nearly having our roof collapsed had subsided, we waited for round two, which was forecasted to be quite the downpour. It was. 

The next day (February 18th), I'd guesstimate we saw 4 inches of snow over 8 hours. Traffic came to a standstill, the whole city was blanketed in white, and Morgan even accepted my offer of a ride home from work:

When I scooped her from campus around 2 o'clock, we had one thing on our mind: night skiing! Busy schedules and the threat of the daily Brighton Pileup had kept us from heading up on most days with any light precip, but with half a foot of snow in town, we knew we had to get up there. Alas, UDOT had other plans.

With heavy traffic and heavy snow, Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons were closed to uphill traffic. We were bummed, but decided to make the most of our time in the Valley by doing the type-a productive version of playing in the snow: shoveling it! We cleared our neighbor's driveway, the sidewalks, and determined the bucket full of crystal-like pebbles in the garage was, in fact, salt. (All the while, we grumbled about how jealous we were that Leah had been stuck up there alllll day.)

As the sun was setting, Morgan took charge of my old box of blueberries in the fridge and made, uhh, this, from some leftover quiche crust.

We were in the middle of making dinner when the urge to really get one last glimpse of the chaos took over me, and I suggested we go for a walk at Sugarhouse Park. Morgan suggested we take trash bags to go sledding, but I had a different plan:

Feeling ridiculous as ever, we loaded our touring skis into the truck and managed to get a couple laps in at the Sugarhouse Hill. 

As it turns out, 4 inches of snow on a manicured lawn skis really well!

After we got our fill, we packed it up and headed home for some fusion cuisine: pakora-falafels with donut-pita.

The next day, I decided I needed to go skiing. I took a half-day from work, left the house at 7am (way too late!), but somehow managed to still make it up to the Snowbird before lifts started spinning.

Despite my eagerness to surf bottomless pow, my abilities (and quads) fell short, and I was totally gassed after a few runs. Still, getting in some turns and a workday on a powder day is pretty sweet, and I'd do it again every time.

So I did! Margot played the devil on my shoulder and convinced me that a day at Deer Valley was in the cards for Friday. Around 4pm I posted in our team's slack channel:

Heads up folks—I'm going to take tomorrow off to ski just in case it never snows again.

Friday rolled around, and Margot and I headed up for my first day at Deer Valley. I had a ton of preconceptions: The snow would be thin, the people would be snooty, and the lines would be endless. None of those were true. Well, the people in the gondola did seem like they bought Range Rovers just for the parking. But apart from that, we had a great day! 

According to Slopes we skied around 15K feet, which left us both pretty tired. I also really enjoyed skiing with someone new. As it so happens, Margot skiing with a broken ankle just about matches my ability level perfectly! I forgot to take pictures all day, but managed to snag this one on our way out, of the PD harassing some locals who've been displaced by the wave of gentrification.

Excited for even more, I raced home in time to meet Morgan to head up to Brighton and FINALLY get some laps under the floodlights. We hopped in the car, drove to the canyon, sat in traffic, caught up with Liz, and two hours later we were parked in the lot, with skis, boots, and poles in hand.

Though, Morgan forgot her ski pants.

This was a pretty big bummer. I get especially excited about skiing together on powder days because I'll see Mo attempt terrain she wouldn't otherwise. Still, with a full day of skiing under my belt already I wasn't too too sad to lend her my pants and drive back down to town. As I was headed home, thick clouds and flurries of snow gave way to golden light, and I snapped this photo at the Cardiff Fork parking area.

The next day (Saturday), was one of my favorite days in a long time. We enjoyed a lazy morning that included organizing the garage, and doing a long-overdue oil change on the truck.

With the hard stuff out of the way, we headed BACK up to the canyons. This time: Mill Creek Canyon. We've skinned the road once before, stopping short at three miles and this time, though it was unspoken, we both knew we wanted to go further. Enjoying a leisurely pace and our respective podcasts, we made it to the 4.2 mile mark before turning back. One moment I remember distinctively: once we were pretty far "out there" I glanced up the road for a brief second and saw a shadowy outline of a snout. As my brain processed what my eyes had seen a second before, my gaze SHOT back to what I though was a moose—but was just some exposed foliage on the creek bank. 

A few minutes later as we were transitioning to head downhill, Morgan let out a shriek! "Moose!" I though. It wasn't. She was just messing with me.

All of this moose, no-moose business culminated with us encountering an agitated group of hikers about a quarter mile from the car. They were swinging their poles, yelling, and running towards me. Thinking they just wanted me to avoid their dogs, I thought nothing of it. Until:

As it so happened, I was so fixated on the crowd of people I missed the half-ton even-toed ungulate standing in the middle of the trail. It had been following this mother with a baby on her back, and she was rightfully freaked out. If you look closely, you can see it in the background as we attempted to make haste back to the car.

With that, we made it home, and I decided that four days on skis was enough for me for a while. My cup was full.

I'm really happy what this little window of four days showed me about myself and Morgan. We are the kind of people who play like children in the snow, and make time to help our neighbors. Playing hooky to go ski reminded me of what it felt like to just be starting out on skis, taking every possible opportunity to get out and rip a few laps. And walking through the woods together reminded me of our time on the TMB, when all we would do for days was walk with a pack, take pictures, and look at the world around us. The snow is long gone now, but I'm excited for the next time mother natures decides bring some cold smoke our way. We'll be ready!