We didn't get up the canyon and onto the chair until around 10 a.m., in part because the canyon was closed and traffic backed up, but also in part because H had to shovel the eight inches (!!!) of snow that fell on our driveway overnight. It was pretty wet and heavy and we both had been woken up at 4:00 a.m. when a neighbor's tree lost a huge limb, luckily not onto any of our property. It was snowing and 24 at the base of Alta, dropping to 11 up at the summit. The snow didn't drop all day.
Not your typical spring scene
Because it's so late in the season, there were hardly any folks skiing, it seemed. We broke trail on one of the Catherine's traverses, well after 10 a.m., and still found untracked snow after lunchtime - amazing. And the snow! There is SO MUCH SNOW up there that I can't even believe they're closing in three weeks. I was skiing better than I had been, not fighting the powder nearly as much as I'd been. H and I had just so much fun, plunging off ridiculously steep (as in practically vertical) stuff in Catherine's Area and Keyhole Gulch (below East Greeley). I learned that raising my arms above my head whilst hooting and hollering causing me to fall over immediately. This of course makes H laugh so much that he is unable to help dig me out of whatever deep puff of snow I'm in, so I had to learn to fend for myself.
My legs were toast by 2:00 p.m. H took another couple of runs off the Wildcat chair which were not as good as Catherine's Area: the steep, narrow chutes there had been pretty scraped off over the last week, so the new deep powder just slid off them. No matter: it had been a very good day.
This guy, in Alta's parking lot,
was maybe a little optimistic
We hustled home, cleaned up, threw the dog in the car and headed to the Porcupine to celebrate our one-and-a-half years in Utah anniversary, splitting a pitcher of Full Suspension and an order of chicken wings. A very good day indeed.
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