the storm that wasn't

Oh yes, they said, 27-41 inches of snow.  They said it was going to start snowing Saturday night, snow all day on Sunday (with daytime accumulations of around 12") with driving conditions getting bad, keep snowing all Sunday night and well into Monday.  It was going to be a significant snow event, they said.  And when I took B out one last time before bed Saturday night and saw that it had snowed enough to cover the lawn, I was sure they knew what they were talking about.

Alta got four inches, maybe five.

If we hadn't been assured that we'd be skiing in over a foot of powder, we would have thought it was really good.  As it was, it was pretty good: brand new snow and enough to merit taking my Rossignols up instead of my trusty little Volkls.  I actually had a really good day on my powder skis: there was enough snow that they floated up on top of it, but not so much as to freak me out about skiing in really deep powder.  I felt like I knew what I was doing, was able to trust the skis and not fight them.  (The fact that the light was fairly flat helped too - since I couldn't see what I was skiing on, I really did have to trust my skis.)

We did at least five runs in Catherine's Area, taking the newly opened lower traverse across the newly opened Supreme Bowl.  We weren't sure if there was enough new snow to make up for the sizable and firm bumps from the day before, but it was really pretty good.  I am definitely skiing more timidly this season, worried about falling since there just isn't as much soft, puffy snow to land on, but those runs in Catherine's were lots of fun.

The only run that I wasn't crazy about was my own fault anyway.  After lunch, I suggested that we scoot around EBT and go into the backside along the traverse.  The traverse was awful: the light was really, really flat and you couldn't see any of it, just flailing along trying not to wipe out on the whoop-de-doos.  Once we got out into the wide bowl under the East Greeley Area the snow was fairly soft, but getting out there was tough.

There were more cars in the parking lot than on Saturday although the traffic hadn't been bad (and the road was nearly dry by the time we headed down) and it never got crowded on the slopes.  The Supreme lift always gets busy around 10:30 a.m. - at which point we cruise through the singles line - but after lunch we were able to ski right onto the lift, no waiting.  It snowed, lightly and intermittently, during the day but we could see the sun gleaming weakly through the clouds, which didn't bode well for getting any decent accumulation; by 2:30 p.m. there were patches of blue sky.  The "storm" was over.