Saturday, April 16, 2011

worst conditions of the season

Alta had gotten another 15 or so inches Thursday night.  Friday was a beautiful day but because it was Friday, and late in the season, we figured the snow wouldn't have been totally tracked out.  So we gave it a little time to soften up Saturday morning, eventually getting to the Supreme chair around 10:30 a.m.  There was no one there: the parking lot was less than one-third full when we got there, and the lifties at Collins had a game of "who can toss their mittens into the bullseye painted on the snow" going.  The clouds were low and it was snowing a little, but due to clear up.

Once at the top of Supreme, we immediately headed into Catherine's Area, greedy for untracked snow.  Big mistake.  HUGE mistake.  The snow was awful: heavy and compacted, we skittered on top of it on a soft crust.  This crust broke when you tried to turn, plunging you into cement.  H had tried to ski on it as he usually does but broke through and fell, tweaking his knee a little bit; I did a little better since I'm lighter, but I was wearing my new powder skis and couldn't make them turn how I wanted to.  We finally got out of there, skiing across the fall line and turning as little as possible.  Just terrible. 

We took the Sugarloaf lift up and skated around the return traverse to Collins, thinking that perhaps the snow would be softer lower down.  It was, but the clouds had really settled in and the visibility was pretty much zero.  It was a unanimous decision to call it an early day.

So home we went.  It was partly/mostly sunny in the valley: H went for a fifty (!!) mile bike ride, from our house up to - and up - Emigration Canyon and back, while I dragged out rakes and hoes and shovels and dug out five new garden beds in the backyard and started laying weed-block fabric down over the rest of it.  When H got back from his epic ride, we enjoyed some PBRs on the deck, acknowledging that while the skiing was dang horrible, the day as a whole sure wasn't.

PS - Mr. I-can-ride-50-miles-in-April had to go to bed at 8:30 p.m.

2 comments:

  1. How long does it take him to ride 50 miles?

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  2. I'm not really sure but I think it was about three hours. First big ride of the year, tho', and much of it uphill ... ask me again in September after a summer in the saddle and it'll be faster for sure.

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