Avalanche Course / Solitude Chocolate Day - January 23, 2010

James and Anchorage Dan took an avalanche course this week. They had their classroom day on Wednesday evening. Then their outdoor course at The Canyons today. They got super cheap lift tickets because they would ride the lift, maybe twice. The rest of the day they spent digging holes in the snow to look at the different types of layers and identifying hazards of terrain and slope angle and the snow pack.



After their day of poking around in the snow, they stopped by an event at Park City. Watched some very, very impressive snowboarding - including the Flying Tomato (Sean White) and Louis Vito (my favorite because of his adventures on Dancing with the Stars).



While the guys were shoveling and practicing beacon drills, I had a half day of skiing at Solitude with my friend Diana. She used to patrol at Snow Basin and Powder Mountain, so our skiing is very compatible. Even though she's never been and I've only skied at Solitude a couple times, we found plenty of fresh snow and even some untracked turns!



And as a surprise bonus, it was Chocolate Day! We got a piece of yummy Cummings mint chocolate at the base area and a "passport" with six spots for "validations" We didn't try to go to all the different chocolate spots, but we did get the chocolate milk and made a special effort to get a chocolate covered strawberry. YUMMY!