Weekly Newsletter: December 25th-29th, 2024

Merry Christmas 🎄🎅 and Happy Holidays 🥳 to all of our community! This week, we kept up our annual tradition of skiing on Christmas day, enjoyed a delicious brunch spot, and experienced the holiday skiing crowds.

Check out our new posts and videos 🆕 🎥 📝

Essential Camino Prep: Route Planning and Packing

Keith and I were inspired to walk the Portuguese Coastal Route of the Camino de Santiago. Planning the stages of the 170 miles and packing quickly became my focus for preparing for the trip.

Keith and LindseyLindsey Huster

Christmas skiing at Snowbird 🎅 🥶

Since moving to Utah, we have had an annual traditional of skiing on Christmas day. We don't have any family in Utah to spend Christmas morning with so instead, we head to the slopes! 🎿 During past years, Christmas skiing has always been amazing. We have been fortunate to have powder days on most prior Christmas days. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case this year...

Low snow conditions have persisted which has led to somewhat miserable skiing conditions. There is still very limited terrain open and what is open is often littered with rocks and bushes. Christmas day this year also dealt with freezing fog conditions. This was some of the worst freezing fog that we have ever experienced! The fog was so bag that our clothing had a layer of ice on it after each run and we had to stop to clear the ice from our goggles multiple times during each run.

Due to the poor conditions, we decided to head home early and spend the rest of the day hanging out at our house.

Date night dinner at Quiero Mas 🌮 🇲🇽

We haven't been out to dinner in a while so we decided to check out a local Mexican restaurant in Provo, UT called Quiero Mas. Keith ordered the Quesabirria Tacos and Lindey ordered the Pink Shrimp Tacos. We also shared an order of chips and queso. The food was delicious and we really enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant.

Massive crowds at Snowbird 🤯 😫

On Saturday, we headed back up to Snowbird to ski again. The Wasatch Front has finally started receiving some significant snowfall so we were excited to ski with less rocks to avoid and potentially more runs open. Unfortunately, the storms dumped significant, heavy, wet snow onto our thin, weak snow base. This resulted in major avalanche activity throughout the backcountry and within the Snowbird resort area.

We sat in the Creekside lodge waiting patiently for the lifts to open. Some of our friends braved the 2+ hour wait outside in the snow/rain mix conditions. 🥶 By 11:00 AM, we decided to call it and head back down the mountain. The lifts did finally open around this same time but the crowds were massive and the open terrain was extremely limited. This meant that even if we did stay, we would only get a few laps in on very crowded runs.

Brunch at Hash Kitchen 🌯 🍳

Instead of skiing, we decided to enjoy the rest of the morning by having brunch at the Hash Kitchen in Draper, UT. This restaurant has been on Lindsey's list for a while now and we never have time to visit it. This was the perfect opportunity to check out this brunch spot.

Hash Kitchen definitely has a younger-crowd vibe; from the mimosa flights, make your own Bloody Mary bar, donut bar, and bunch DJ! 🎧 🎵 Lindsey ordered the breakfast nachos and Keith ordered the breakfast burrito. Lindsey also ordered a White Peach Mimosa, which was delicious! Lindsey's nachos were excellent but Keith's burrito was just ok. All in all though, this was a fun way to spend the rest of the morning after our failed attempt to ski.

Skiing at Snowbird: Take 2! ⛷️ ❄️

We decided to try, once again, to ski at Snowbird on Sunday. We set our expectations pretty low based on the conditions and crowds that we witnessed on Saturday. The recent storms had passed over and the skies had been clear for quite some time so we were hopeful that the lifts would open on time and that new terrain would be open. Unfortunately, once again, this wasn't the case.

The lifts were delayed due to ongoing avalanche mitigation across the entire mountain. Also, we found out through a friend that only the Gad Valley area would be opening this day. That meant that all of the holiday crowds would once again be forced into the same small area, creating some of the longest lift lines that we have ever experienced at Snowbird. Thankfully, we got in line somewhat early so we weren't too far back in the crowd.

We headed up the Gadzoom lift and quickly made our way to the Little Cloud lift to attempt to hit some early morning wind-buffed runs. We knew that we would only have a short window of time to get some good laps in before the crowds took over. Thankfully, our plan worked out beautifully! We got three, excellent laps of of the Little Cloud lift before the line got too long to justify another run. We then made our way down to the Gad 2 lift but it was also severely overcrowded. So, we headed down to the Creekside base where, unsurprisingly, all of the lifts were also overcrowded. So, we decided to take the short win and head back down the mountain.

Breakfast at Cupla Coffe ☕ 🥯

After enjoying the brief, but excellent skiing, we headed down the mountain to grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast. We decided to check out Cupla Coffee in Cottonwood Heights, UT. This local chain has been on Lindsey's list and it wasn't too far out of the way from our typical route home.

Keith enjoyed a sampling of some sweet treats while Lindsey ordered the deconstructed lox bagel. The coffee was good, the place was nice, and all in all it was a good breakfast stop.

Upcoming posts and videos 👷‍ 👷‍♀️️

Lindsey has recently wrapped up a series of posts on our Quick Trip to New York City. If you haven't seen that yet, you should check it out. Lindsey has also started working on the post series from our three-week adventure along the Camino De Santiago, Portuguese Route! Those posts will be published soon. We also have several prior trips that we haven't yet shared, so be sure to subscribe to our blog if you haven't done so already.

We hope that you are enjoying our newsletters. How do you enjoy the winter/holiday season? Do you have any fun holiday activities planned? Let us know in the comments section below.👇 💬