karma = seventh chair

Despite being shut out of Friday's powder day, H and I kept our hopes and spirits up and, as planned, returned to Alta on Easter Sunday.  This was absolutely the right thing to do: they'd gotten more snow both Friday and Saturday nights; the "mostly cloudy" forecast turned out to be "sunny in the morning and then slowly clouding over after lunch;" and there was no one there.  Thank you, Easter Bunny!

So Much Snow

As the crowd grew at the main lift (Collins), we sidled over to the smaller, slower and less well-attended Wildcat double, managing to snag the seventh chair.  The snow looked GORGEOUS and we were practically drooling when we got off at the top, and then cruised back down in powder over our knees.  Our first three runs were in untracked snow - so soft and so deep that it splashed up into my face as I turned. 

Knee-deep in the Ballroom

The avalanche guns were going off all morning, but that's a good thing: when they're done blasting the potential avalanches, then we get to ski in the deep stuff.  And sure enough, we timed it just right to be at the access gates when they dropped the rope into the Ballroom.  Again, traversing across and then dropping into the bowl, powder well over our knees - fabulous.  We quickly learned why so many people wear neon orange straps on their skis too: H went ass over teakettle and lost a ski twice, and we had to stomp around, poking at the snow to find it.  When you wear those tethers, you don't lose your skis.  We'll be buying those tethers soon.

Starting to get sticky, but still plenty soft

After lunch the south-facing slopes started to get heavier and a little sticky (although still super-soft), so we headed over to the Supreme lift and skied Catherine's Area.  We had skied over there with Will, Chris and Judy when the Easterners were in town and it was a little sketchy then - steep, narrow chutes with stumps poking through the thin cover.  The chutes are still steep and narrow but there were no thin spots this time; I was hitting clumps of snow up to my chest on occasion.  Just glorious.

Nearly 200 people were in line for the Devil's Castle traverse

I lost track of how many times I fell but the struggles to pull myself back up out of all that deep snow finally took their toll - it's hard work digging yourself out - and, exhausted, we called it quits a little before 3:00 p.m.  The clouds had moved in by then anyway and the light was getting flat, so we took off our boots and enjoyed a can of PBR each ($2.50 - bargain!) on the patio before heading back down the canyon for home.  It was early to bed for us both.

Today both H and I are sort of limping around, stiff and sore but greedy for more.  Alta has had 4 feet of snow in the last five days and it's snowing again right now: the canyons are supposed to get 18-30 inches between now and Tuesday night.  The folks who like to garden and golf are complaining but not us - the end of ski season is sadly in sight and we'll take all that we can get until then.