sticky

It was pretty warm right from the start for skiing this past Saturday and although the forecast included a 20% chance of thunder, the clouds only built briefly in the afternoon.  I'm running out of ways to say the same thing: it was frozen corduroy off Collins in the morning so we did a couple of Sugarloaf first (which was already soft in spots); then we did several runs back at Collins (which was firmer but softening).  Skier Services Martha noted that at 11:15 a.m. we still hadn't made the move to Supreme - not wanting to disappoint, we moved over there and did a couple runs before lunch.

Heading back out after lunch

After lunch we did a couple of runs down Extrovert off the Sugarloaf chair.  But things were getting so soft and sticky that the skiing was really slow, even on the steeps, and on the flats it was nigh impossible to maintain forward momentum without poling like mad.  We had gotten a little storm on Monday night which left about a foot at Alta; I wonder if that new snow was the reason it was so sticky when the last couple of weekends had been nice, skiable corn snow.  We did manage one run all the way into our favorite spot in Catherine's Area - because this time of year, every run into Catherine's Area could be the season's last - and amazingly, the snow on that one, shady pitch was still snow-y.  The run out was brutal, however, the snow so sticky and grabby.

Another nice day above Catherine's Pass

At 2:15 p.m., H said that he'd had enough: it just wasn't that fun with the sticky snow.  My legs were feeling it too, since the snow was a lot heavier than we'd been skiing on and even with my Salomons surfing pretty well through the slush, I was having to push harder than I was used to doing.  I was also having some boot issues - the custom orthodics have given up and aren't offering any arch support any more - so I was fine with skiing out and having a beer on the truck's tailgate.  Tomorrow is always another day.