we capture the castle

Saturday at Alta was 180 degrees different from the previous Sunday at Alta: warm, sunny and soft, soft snow.  As always for spring season skiing, we took our time getting up there even though it didn't appear to have gotten that cold the night before.  Right off the bat (by which I mean, just after 10:00 a.m.) anything groomed and in the sun was soft; anything groomed and in the shade was quite firm; and anything not groomed - shaded or sunny - was hard.  Also, there was really nobody there, the parking lot easily half empty.  And also-also, it was quite windy.

We did a couple of runs off the Sugarloaf chair, then moved to Supreme.  After a couple of groomers, we decided to give Catherine's Area a try, despite my feeling that it was still too soon and wouldn't have softened up yet.  For the record,  I was right.  On our next chair ride, we rode up with an Alta employee (parking lot attendant/staff photographer) who said he'd just been over on the Backside where East Greeley was "skiing good."  We schlepped over there - the trip around the EBT was super-fast due to the strong wind at our backs - and gave it a try: it was awesome.  The first part was easy-skiing corn snow, up above the Yellow Trail Area; the second part was heavier but so soft.  Lots of folks were having trouble with the heavy snow but not us.  We went right back to and up the Sugarloaf lift and did that run again.  Super fun!

The view from the high traverse

After lunch, we went into Devil's Castle, taking the low traverse in.  The snow was pretty soft and not too many people were doing the hike, so I suggested we do it again, only this time taking the high traverse and going all the way up and all the way over.  About halfway up the hike I was regretting my words - that is a long-ass, steep traverse at around 11,000 feet (with skis and ski boots).  We passed a couple of other skiers who were on their third and fifth (!) time in that day, so we had a feeling it was going to be good.  Finally we stopped, having hiked into Devil's Castle further than ever we have,  and looked down at a vast expanse of nearly untracked powder.  H threw himself into it gleefully and I followed just as soon as I'd caught my breath.  It was just great.  It wasn't like that day with the ski guests, since the snow was old and had compacted somewhat.  But it as soft and untracked and we had it all to ourselves (because almost no one is willing to hike in that far), doing huge, sweeping turns. Super-duper fun!

All that, just for us

After that - and those two runs into the Castle, including the traverses, took us well over an hour - our legs were pretty tired, plus H wanted to get a road ride in.  We took our time skiing out and paused for a refreshing beverage on the Goldminer's Daughter patio, along with other happy spring skiers.  It was a really good day.

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