possibly the best day ever

Saturday morning, we were in the middle of a full on righteous snowstorm, with Alta claiming 11" by sunrise.  I wasn't feeling it, however, and sent H off by himself.  So while I did two loads of laundry, vacuumed, shoveled snow for three hours (because we got nearly a foot of heavy snow down here at our house) and watched A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix, H had himself a very good day.

He almost didn't make it up there, though.  He squeezed aboard an early bus (SRO, with about a dozen people who didn't get on and had to wait for the next one), which skidded on the road by the Bells Canyon trailhead but barged on up the canyon past several cars that had slid off the road.  The roads must have been terrible in the morning - they certainly were in our neighborhood! - because although the corral was full with people waiting for the lifts to open, after the initial rush H skied right onto the lifts all day, the parking lot never filled up and there were tons of empty tables at lunch.

Wildcat chair, looking stormy

Even though everything that Alta can close was closed (Ballroom, Backside, Baldy Chutes, Devil's Castle, EBT, East Castle, Rock 'N Roll, Supreme Bowl - and even Supreme lift in the afternoon), with the sparse attendance and the sheer amount of snow, H had no trouble making first tracks over and over and over again, wherever he went, all day, as the snow just kept coming down.  The storm total ended up being 36" (!!!) and Alta got 17" during the day alone.  He was up to his waist often and didn't need to bother making turns, even on Extrovert and Chartreuse Nose: he just went straight down and the volume of snow kept his speed in check.

He skied literally all day, from opening chair to closing chair, ending up with 24 total runs on the day and 35,000 feet of elevation.  The powers that be closed the canyon road from 2-3:30 p.m. for avalanche control and that backed up traffic quite a lot; he had to wait over an hour for a bus to show up.  He finally walked into the house around 6:30 p.m., pretty tired but also pretty happy.  I'm sorry to have missed out on such a day but I would have struggled in all that snow, so I'm glad that he got to take full advantage.  And maybe his legs will be a little tired for Sunday, giving me a chance to keep up.