not exactly what we had in mind

What with the recent new 17+ inches at Alta, and both our bosses encouraging us to take the day off to go skiing, we could hardly say no.  Still, we hedged our bets, wishing for a bluebird day, and didn't commit 100% to going until the alarm went off this morning.  The clouds were latched onto the canyons but the rest of the valley was clear and blue, so off we went. 

We were not the only ones with this idea.  The drive to Alta usually takes us 20 minutes from our house to the parking lot (if we've remembered to buy our discounted tickets ahead of time); today it took us 55 minutes, partly because we had to drive over to the Lift House (by the Porcupine!) for the tickets and partly because there was a whole lot of traffic heading up Little Cottonwood Canyon - at one point, Wasatch Boulevard was backed up all the way to Bengal Boulevard.  (I realize that means absolutely nothing to most of you reading this.  Trust me when I say: lots and lots of cars.)

When we pulled into Alta, the line for the chairlift was already HUGE.  This didn't faze us much, however, figuring we'd take our time putting on our boots and then once the lift opened at 9:15 a.m., we'd go out after the initial crowd thinned.  We got into line, everyone around us laughing and smiling at the parting clouds, H fretting because other people were tracking up his nice mountain.

And then at 9:30 a.m. the lift stopped.

Turns out the power station for the entire town of Alta went down, which is not what you want to hear when you're standing in the lift line.  Although it's better than hearing it when you're stuck halfway up a chairlift, I suppose.  They cranked up a generator and got the slow little Wildcat double chair turning and then stopped that too after a while.  We waited and waited and waited until 10:30 when an Alta employee told the assembled skiers that it would be at least an hour, maybe two, before the power was restored.  I looked at H, H looked at me, and we decided to make a break for Solitude.

You see, Solitude just lowered its ticket prices to $39 and when we were over at the Lift House, at the base of Big Cottonwood Canyon (the road to Solitude), we briefly considered going there instead, before deciding that a day like today deserved Alta.  Boy, are we dumb - because if we'd acted on that initial impulse, we would have had front row parking and untracked powder.  Instead, by the time we got up to Solitude (still wearing our helmets and ski boots), the trails were all tracked out, the parking lot was completely full and it looked like the people parked on the access road were probably going to be ticketed - if not towed - by the end of the day.

So we gave up, went home and I went for a hilly run instead.  We've still got our unused Alta tickets - I am SO grateful that we didn't get to take a run before the power went out because then we would have wasted a lift ticket (as opposed to just wasting a vacation day) - and there's more snow in the forecast.  The new plan: Alta for Easter.