catching some beneficial rays

The inversion has set in again - and looks to be here for a while - so we headed up to Alta to escape the icky grey weather in the valley and see the sun for a change, even though we haven't had any new snow.  The weekend's weather was forecast to be in the high 30s and clear skies, meaning that we layered down a bit from the last few ski trips; indeed, while it was 5 F at our house Saturday morning, the temperatures crept up as we got higher, the air clearing until it was 10 F at Alta's base at 9:00 a.m.

Looking for soft(-ish) turns 

on East Greeley

We had expected to find crowds up there due to the inversion and the long weekend but there was hardly anyone there (good for us, bad for the ski resort).  The sun was up in the big blue sky, working its way over the mountains.  We tried a couple of runs off the Supreme chair first, as we always do, but that chair ride is still in the morning shadows this time of year, so we went back to Sugarloaf for the rest of the morning.  We skied East Greeley, which was pretty good, all things considered, warming in the morning sun, and did some bumps runs on Extrovert under the chairlift.

View of Supreme from the Backside

After lunch we went back to Supreme, finding no lift lines and softer snow.  Catherine's Area was pretty good although the traverse along the Supreme Bowl is in rough shape.  We stayed out until about 2:30 p.m., then headed home, reluctantly returning to the cold (20 degrees colder than up the canyon!), dark valley.  It was wonderful to play in the bright sunshine: if I can't have snowstorms, I want to have bluebird skies.

Helluva a blue sky