trust me

H likes to tease me about how my version of events often tends to differ from his version.  He says I exaggerate and embellish; I say that I use details to make the story better.  For example, if he were writing the post about last Sunday's ski day at Alta, it would go something like this:

• Got up to Alta around 9:10 a.m., skied until almost 3 p.m.
• High 20s, low 30s; overcast to start, clearing to partly sunny
• Busier than expected

Now, all of that is right - dry, factual and correct.  But who wants to read that?  Heck, I hardly even wanted to write it!  Granted, there's not much storytelling necessary here because we were back at Alta again, skiing again, same old thing we've been doing since opening day.  But ...

Soft stuff in Catherine's

Alta was supposed to get some overnight snow, with snow showers through the morning and tapering off in the afternoon as the storm system moved out.  There didn't turn out to be much new, however, and if any snow fell on Sunday I've forgotten about it already.  It really didn't matter to us, though, because Catherine's Area was going to open after being closed all day Saturday.  We went straight to Supreme and did laps in the 3 Bears trees and around Vicky's/Hammer Head while we waited for the rope to drop.  We were not alone in our excitement about Catherine's: when they did finally drop the rope, a huge surge of people moved in, hiking up and hammering out the traverse.  And all those other people?  They stayed at Catherine's for the whole morning - I have never seen so many people in there.

Although the busy conditions made for some frustrating moments on the traverse (don't stop on the traverse! don't take your skis off and walk on the traverse! and don't stop on the traverse!), Catherine's Area is big enough that we were able to keep finding freshies until close 'til noon.  The snow was quite good, heavy but soft, and we made sure to take advantage of it, hiking up and in over and over and over again, all morning.

I swear, my next ski jacket will

not make me look so dumpy

After lunch, our morning in Catherine's took a toll on my legs.  We scooted around the EBT to take a run in East Greeley; the sporadic sun had baked the snow there pretty well, rendering it dense and chunky, and I bounced off the chunks like a pinball.  We did a run through the trees/cabins, then went back to Supreme for a couple of runs.  I cried uncle before 3 p.m. and we skied out, my poor, shaky legs yelling at me the whole way back to Collins.

NOTE: I didn't have H fact-check this for me.  You'll just have to trust me, and my embellishments, that this is what happened. :-)