powder day

Once again we bailed on skiing Saturday, due to the very cold and very windy conditions, coupled with very low visibility.  This sneaky storm ended up dropping around 16" in 24 hours, including more than seven inches after the lifts stopped turning ... which meant untracked freshies for Sunday morning.  H had gotten a tweet that Little Cottonwood Canyon would be closed for avalanche control from 10:30 p.m. Saturday until 8:30 a.m. Sunday, so we left the house early, at 8 a.m., to get in line.  The traffic started moving (in fits and starts) right on schedule; we got up to Alta a little after 9 a.m.  Although they had forecast 1-2 more inches of snowfall and wind chills in the negatives, the skies were clear and the temperatures, while chilly, were not unpleasant.

Since we hadn't skied on the Wildcat lift in ages, we did our first two runs from there, in part because the Supreme chair was opening late due to avalanche control, but also because Wildcat is great fun with a bunch of new snow.  The new stuff was light and very fluffy - face shots! - but underneath the bumps were huge and really hard, so we were getting thrown back in our boots when we hit them.  It was still fun to ski in deep-ish powder, though, and everyone else thought so too - we could hear the "woohoo!"s ringing out on all sides.

Just before heading into the trees near Sleepy Hollow

We moved over to Sugarloaf, keeping an eye on Supreme across the valley.  After a couple of runs, we decided to pole around the EBT and take a run in the soft stuff on East Greely, but by the time we made it all the way around, we saw that they were loading Supreme so we hightailed it over there instead.  Catherine's was still not open so we amused ourselves in the trees and chutes in the meantime.  We started riding the singles line by mid-morning but were surprised that it wasn't more crowded, given the bluebird skies and fresh pow.  They opened Catherine's a little before noon and we joined the hordes traversing in there.  The snow was quite good, maybe a little heavier than the fluff on Wildcat, but loads of fun.  H even got his own "woohoo" from an impressed bystander as he caught some air and then stuck the landing.

How pretty is that?!?

After lunch, we took a run on the backside.  Apparently I was fighting the deep stuff more than I thought I was because that East Greely run hit my legs hard.  We went back to Supreme and finished our afternoon there, with me taking more and more groomers as the day went on.  By the time we skied out, I was so tired that I had to go down the bunny slopes to Sunnyside, to take the rope tow across to the base.  H, not having such puny legs, took Sugarloaf up and the EBT around to Collins, and finished his day with a good run down West Rustler.  New snow and blue skies - just can't beat it!