pretty much eastern skiing

With H already three days ahead of me in the ski-day count, I knew I had to get out there for Sunday.  After much waffling about my layering options (bright sun and 30s but groomer skiing and low sun angle), worry about my stiff new boot liners (I got new liners put in my old boots in an attempt to put off buying new boots for at least a year) and triple-checking that I had my mittens AND my ski pass, we boarded the ski bus and went up to Alta.

It was another gorgeous day up in Little Cottonwood Canyon, even as the inversion built up in the valley below.  It was pretty warm, however, keeping mountain operations from making any snow.  And boy do they need snow!  For those of us who grew up skiing in New England, the conditions seemed decent: firm, fast hardpack.  The problem is, even though there weren't that many people skiing, we were all confined to just a couple of trails, so it got skied off fast.

Collins pass with Supreme behind me

The snow was better off of the Sugarloaf lift but they were only loading every other chair, trying to keep the one skiable trail from overcrowding.  It was less frustrating on the Collins side, where you had three(-ish) trails to choose from - and didn't have to wait in line since they filled every chair. 

I called it for us at 1 p.m.  I was skidding out a lot on the skied-off bits (my edges were not sharpened quite as much as I had hoped when I took my skis in for pre-season tuning) and my shins were a little sore from the stiff new boot liners.  It hadn't been the best day of skiing but it was a day of skiing and there's never anything wrong with that.