opening day 2015

At long last, the day H has been waiting for since the end of April: Friday, November 20th, was Alta's opening day for the 2015/2016 season. I opted to work but H went skiing (of course).  Alta had gotten one or two inches of new snow which ended up being just enough to get bumped up over the course of the day, so there was a lot of scrape and clump going on.  The weather was variable - cloudy, cold, windy, snowing, clearing to blue skies - but that didn't keep the opening day crowds away in the least.

Waiting for the lifts to open

I got some texts throughout the day, keeping me up to speed:

"~30 cars.  More arriving.  Lift line already forming."  [this was at 7:51 a.m.; the lifts open at 9:15 a.m.]

"3rd in the singles line"

"Surprised the vents in my pants were zipped.  Then I recalled that horrible weather on closing day."

"Was sunny when I got here.  Now it is pea soup."

"See lots of familiar skiers.  Nobody cooking breakfast but one group just popped a bottle of champagne."

"Very eastern"  [meaning hard and fast]

"And rocky"

After the clouds dissipated

All in all, a pretty typical opening day.  Let the season begin!