saturday at alta

I love these dark blue skies

Saturday dawned with a few inches of new snow, clear skies and bright sunshine, and rather chilly temperatures around 17 at the base. After Chris made breakfast for us, we headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon, meeting Melissa, Judy and Will up there. It looked as though it was going to be crowded but once the first chairs cleared out, we never really had to wait in lines again.

Traversing is a lot of work

Will had been to Alta several times before and H and I were more than happy to let him lead the charge. The charge, however, meant a LOT of traversing and hiking to get to the less-tracked snow. Judy and I managed to hang with the boys for nearly the entire day, which brought me to some terrain that I’m certain I never would have tried if left to my own devices. We did one long, uphill traverse into a trackless bowl and, once I could breathe without panting, flung ourselves into it with abandon. I managed to get two turns in before flopping down into an impressive face plant.

The lunch bunch

Another one of Will’s selections landed us in a tight, tree- and rock-lined chute; he was the only one to attempt it as the rest of us found a slightly wider out. One of the last runs Judy and I did with the boys involved another fairly long, climbing traverse that brought us out on top of a steep ridge. We dropped in before we could psych ourselves out too badly over the height and, at the bottom, Will finally admitted that this would probably be his last “challenging” run – he’s a telemark skier (like Chris) and his legs just couldn’t take it any longer.

When Will's legs finally got tired

After that, Judy and I rejoined Andrea and Melissa for a couple of cushy “girl” runs in a lower bowl, then the whole group camped out on the Alta patio for PBRs in the sunshine. Will thought about it long and hard and said he just couldn’t come up with anything wrong with the whole day – I think he pretty much nailed it there.