There’s too much snow to mt. bike in the woods and it’s a bit too cold for kayaking (at least it is for me) so I took a walk with camera yesterday in the Wissahickon Valley. Some folks were kind enough to blaze trail with snowshoes and XC skis which made walking the trails fun and easy.

On 2/4 I wrote a post about phone cameras. Read it and you will know my views on them. However, when it’s all ya got in your pocket and something worthy shows up right in front of you…..
This young lady was at the Delta baggage claim next to me on the way home from Utah. Sure, I had a backpack with a pro Nikon kit in it, but was too weighed down to dig through it and miss the shot.

Couldn't resist taking this one.

Some of my friends know that I just spent some time in the northern Utah town of Eden and had 7 of the best snow days that Utah has had so far this ski season.  I’ve been asked several times, “when are we going to get to see some photos from Utah?”  Gee, they must think I always ski with a camera.  Well, I do, and I did.  So here is a selection of images from Snowbasin ski area - www.snowbasin.com , and Powder Mountain -www.powdermountain.com .

Utah photographer and good friend, Ryan Thompson. Ryan is a past member of the US Ski Team and still skis like a champion.

Dr. Rob Goldlust and Steve Stomel at the very top of Snowbasin. The little dark area waaay below them is the town of Eden. Not exacty a major metropoliton area, which is why we like it.

The view in the oposite direction of where Rob and Steve are standing.

Our 'darkslider' friend, Dr. Rob on the last run of the day at Powdermountain. Fresh tracks are always available to those who don't mind working to get to them.

Another shot of Dr. Rob. Looking across the valley, you can see where the non-hikers went. All of them. We took a short easy hike to the other side of the valley and as you can see, it's the trail less traveled. I call it Dues/Reward.

"Jack From Colorado". That's all I know about him other than he's a very good powder skier. I met him on the chairlift and we skied together all morning in another fresh powder dump at Powder Mountain.

The morning runs with Jack were in flat overcast light. Not the best for photography, but you can get the idea of how good the snow was.

Then, the sun came out! Niiice.

After Jack and I said our goodbys, I camped out in this area and waited, and waited for someone to ski through the scene. The place is so empty on a Monday that I waited almost 30 mins. for this skiier. However, it wasn't a particularly bad place to hang out. The scenery is outstanding.

The scenery.... Powder Mountain. I wish you could see this image in full resolution. There are groups of ski tracks coming down from the top in several places.

I’ve had a cell phone since sometime in the mid ’90s, after they were reduced to pocket size.  The phone has been upgraded, traded in, replaced when broken, etc., about every two or so years, so I’ve had a bunch of them.  The one common denominator with all of them is that they all had cameras built in.  And, I’ve never used any of them.  Until now.  Last week while in northern Utah I was skiing on arrival day at “The Canyons” in the Park City area with my friend Tom.  At the end of the day as we were walking toward the gondola that takes you back to the parking lot there was a young lady standing on the walkway with her snowboard in front of her.  All I could see of her as we approached was her eyes, framed by the board and her hood.  But what eyes!  Striking was my impression of them.  Then, as Tom and I got close to her she started talking to me, asking about how long it should take to snowboard from the top of the mountain to the bottom.  Oh, and the accent….. French, I think.  If I’d have been cold, the voice would have melted me for sure.  Anyway, after giving her my guess as to how long it should take her friends to get off the mountain, we walked on and I said to Tom that I’d have loved to have gotten a photo of her the way she was standing with the snowboard in front of her.
Tom grabbed my ski poles from me and said, “well then go take a photo of  her!”  I said that my camera gear was in the car and Tom said, “ya gotta phone in your pocket, don’t ya”?   Oh yeah, the iPhone.   I decided that if I didn’t get a photo it would bug me later, so I walked back and asked her if I could take a picture of her with her board in front of her like it was when we first saw her.  She seemed a bit unsure about it but agreed.  So here’s my first iPhone portrait….

I did change the pose a bit to capture all of her face, as it’s a good one.