Articles by Mike Sandy
Today’s snow conditions were the toughest I’ve encountered at Snowbird. The groomed trails and some of the sheltered north-facing terrain were the only places where the conditions were reasonable. My original goals for today, however, didn’t include skiing groomed trails. I planned to explore new terrain, including Great Scott, Wilbere Bowl, and S.T.H. Today, it turned out, was not the right day for those endeavors.
Patience was not a virtue present in the tram line this morning. People were cutting in front of Brendan and me until I adopted a defensive stance using my poles. A gaggle of malcontents complained when the line didn’t start moving at the stroke of nine (the tram’s opening time). A few minutes later, a veritable riot broke out when the tram line ticket checker let a group of instructors and their clients through the turnstiles instead of the public. The malcontents heckled her until she started the public line moving again.
It has snowed for eleven straight days and seventeen of the last nineteen. About a hundred inches of snow has fallen at Snowbird since March 3, including a foot last night. At less than 5 percent water content, the new snow was about as light as it gets.
MRI machines make a horrible racket, like a jackhammer. I found the racket soothing. It was loud, but the cadence was at perfectly spaced intervals to lull me to sleep. (I also fall asleep in the dentist’s chair. Is that weird?)
The fall that put me in that MRI machine occurred six weeks earlier during my first ski day of 2019 on January 5. Snowbird wasn’t in great shape that day. The holiday crowds had scraped snow off the high-traffic areas, and the snow conditions were about as bad as it gets in the Wasatch—slick, crusty, and hard-packed.
On September 11, 1992, a category 4 hurricane named Iniki struck the Hawaiian island of Kauai, killing six people and causing billions of dollars of damage. (It also interrupted production of a big-budget film called Jurassic Park.) According to NOAA, the damage was so extensive that, after a month, power had been restored to only 20 percent of the island. Wind gusts as high as 175 miles per hour stripped the green from the Garden Isle’s lush vegetation. And the Honopu Ridge Trail hasn’t been officially maintained since that day.
Twenty-six years later, I hiked the remnants of the Honopu Ridge Trail to the most amazing view I’ve ever seen. Photos don’t do it justice.
I arrived at Snowbird early enough to catch the first (public) tram to the top of Hidden Peak. Mineral Basin didn’t open yesterday, so I figured its south- and southeast-facing runs would be loaded with powder snow because of the storm’s strong west-northwest winds.
I was right. The 19 inches of fresh powder on White Diamonds was some of the deepest I’ve ever skied.
I designed a backpacking PocketMod with useful information for hikers and backpackers, including:
In today’s fast-paced world full of attention-grabbing diversions, baseball has often been criticized for being too boring. I don’t buy it. Baseball has endured for so long precisely because so many still find following the game a worthwhile pastime.
I will admit, however, that following baseball is more challenging than following some other sports because of its slower pace, its frequency (almost daily), and some of the game’s almost imperceptible nuances. But with a little bit of effort, you, too, can learn to appreciate the game and become a baseball fan.
Without further ado, here are some humble suggestions for how to become a baseball fan.
Last weekend, I visited Death Valley National Park for the first time. We were in Las Vegas for the weekend, but we wanted to get out of the city, so we took a trip to Death Valley for the day.
Last weekend (April 21–22, 2017), I participated in a Ragnar Trail race on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.
The setting on the North Shore near Turtle Bay was very nice. The weather, however, was not nice. It rained off and on during the entire time event. Sections of the trails were covered with puddles and ankle-deep mud, especially the yellow trail. Although the conditions weren’t at all what I was expecting when I signed up, the event was awesome.
For the past 12 weeks, I’ve been training for a Ragnar Trail race. I’ve never run a trail race, and the only road races I’ve run were Thanksgiving Day 5K races where I walked 85% of the course. My commitment to do this race was significant for me because I did so when I was literally in the worst shape of my life.