high rustler for the win

I know this is totally obnoxious to say but I'm going to say it anyway because it's true: all the days of waking up to all sorts of new snow up at Alta are starting to run together. It snowed all night up there Friday night and in the morning the roads were clear but the canyon had about eight (+) new inches. It was cloudy again - we've really only had a handful of bluebird days this ski season - and about the same temperature as last weekend, and much of Alta was closed (Devil's Castle, East Castle, Cecret Saddle, Baldy Chutes). But the snow was excellent and for a moment I was sad that Chris and Andrea didn't get to ski Alta with a bunch of new snow.  Just for a moment tho', because then I had to ski hard to keep up with H.


The morning was spent on the Supreme chair, in Catherine's and the chutes under the chair. It was all tracked out (we were up there about an hour after opening because H had some work stuff to do first) but there was a ton of snow in there and the chutes that were a little intimidating to me last weekend were super-fun this time.

Deep pow in Catherine's Area

In the afternoon we moved over to the Backside/East Greeley where, again, there was a ridiculous amount of snow. But the very best run came about when H suggested we take the traverse out to West Rustler. It's a long traverse, starting behind the Collins lift and running the length of the ridge; the light was kind of flat and it was difficult to see what was underfoot. When we got out there, we plunged into High Greeley, then skirted Greeley Bowl, making our way over to the chutes and trees around Eagle's Nest/Hourglass/North Rustler. It was crazy-steep there - and H had to carefully scoot across what could possibly be construed as a cliff, while I worked my way down below, scoring a couple more scrapes on my helmet from the tight trees - and there's absolutely no way I would ever ski there in a low-snow year. But as I mentioned, there was a TON of snow, and not much traffic because it's so steep, and it ended up being my favorite run of the day, not least because I've never done it before.

View to the base lodge from North Rustler - steep, no?

It also ended up being my last run of the day as my poor little legs were jelly by the time we got to the tow rope which dragged us back to the base. I took the truck keys and hunkered down in the lodge with the book I keep in my boot bag just for these occasions while H took four more runs - three on Wildcat and another High Rustler. I bought us PBRs when he finished up and we toasted yet another great day on the hill.