01-April-2024 BLIZZARD!

This is not an April Fools joke – I was literally in a blizzard today!

I decided to go up Big Cottonwood Canyon to check out Solitude Mountain Resort today. I had put off coming here because snow was forecasted yesterday, and travel to this weather-prone Canyon is dicey in bad weather. Todays forecast was for cloudy weather and roads were clear in the morning so I headed up.

They had received 19 inches of snow over the last 48 hours – a skiers dream! I got on the large tram and went to the top of the mountain only to discover that about halfway up we went into the clouds and visibility dropped to nearly nothing. Got to the top and it was windy, snowing and impossible to see. I made my way slowly down the mountain unsure of where to go because I had never been here before and really couldn't see where I was going. Luckily, halfway down I broke back through the clouds and could see much better. I decided to stick to a chairlift that served the lower mountain and got in some really nice runs.

I had been there a couple of hours when the weather moved in and the snow started falling hard everywhere – even all the way down to the bottom of the mountain. Visibility dropped to zero and the snow came down so hard that I was covered by the time I got off each chairlift ride. The flakes were big and coming down furiously – it truly was a blizzard! Snow was forecasted to last through the end of the day and I decided I didn't want to risk bad driving or getting hurt because I couldn't see so I decided to head back "home". Crazy thing is that I was only about 25 minutes away from the house and when I got there I took a walk and the sun came out and the daffodils and other spring flowers were blooming. Hard to believe two such different worlds can be located less than a half hour away from each other!

For the cat fans out there, the cats provided some good entertainment today. This morning the older cat (Rio) had a fuzzy toy in his mouth and was taunting the kitten (Ullr) who was below him under a chair. Rio ended up dropping the toy and Ullr got it - much fun. Was had by both

Little Ullr continues to be my shadow and sidekick and sits on my lap when I work on my computer, and both cats were on my lap this evening when I sat on the couch. They hung out together for a bit and then when Rio moved forward Ullr ended up playing with his tail until he got annoyed and left. Ullr scared the daylights out of me when he hopped on the couch with what I thought was a dead mouse in his mouth – thankfully it was just a toy but I almost shrieked and jumped off the couch before I realized it wasn't real. They are so entertaining!

Random fact: the year 2000 version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas movie (live-action) was filmed at Solitude, the ski area where I was today!