christmas eve

Figuring the slopes might be busy on Christmas Eve, what with the Friday holiday and all, we made sure to get up to Alta to be in line for the lift opening.  We were early enough to get a decent parking spot - couple rows back and less than a quarter way down - but noted that the lot totally filled up by about 11 or so.  Not sure where all the people were: although it was the busiest its been this year, we never really had to wait in any lift lines.

This was my first ski outing since I fell on December 5th and boy, was I glad to get outside again.  The sky was blue, the sun was out and even though the snow had stopped by Thursday and everything was all tracked out already, it was still soft.  With an adhesive heat pack stuck to my back, I stuck to groomers, skiing cautiously and calmly, and felt nary a twinge. Well, one twinge on the last run out.  But still - so much better!  Alta has a couple of groomed runs off every lift, so that folks who don't like the steep and/or deep stuff have an easier option down.  But that's not really very many groomed runs and by the end of the day, I felt like I knew them all pretty well. The good thing about these groomers, however, is that even by the end of a busy day, there's still no ice.  Sure, they get bumped up a little and scraped off in spots, but it's still all soft.

My eyes are shut against the bright sun.  Yeah, that's it.

They were setting off avalanche charges all day, which was very entertaining to watch from the chairlifts: you'd watch the patrollers climbing antlike along the snowy slopes; then you'd see the flash; then you'd hear the BANG.  With six+ feet of heavy, wet snow on top of the drier, lighter stuff, avalanche danger has been pretty high and the patrollers are taking no chances.  Finally, they'd cleared enough that they dropped the rope on Devil's Castle.  H did the traverse twice, dropping down into the relatively untracked powder while I'd do two runs off the Sugarloaf lift, not wanting to risk my back so soon.  He reported that it was great: set up a little bit, but still deep and soft.

We skied until about 2:00 p.m., then had celebratory $2.50 PBRs at the Goldminer's Daughter before heading back to the valley, where an inversion blocked the sun from the sky.  No matter.  We had some cheap champagne (a Christmas Eve tradition) and some delicious chili that H had made, and then fell asleep in front of the television while watching A Christmas Story.  Not a bad way to start Christmas.