in which it is almost sunny

Time goes by so fast: because of travel and a brutal head cold, it had been nearly a month since I had gotten up to Alta.  We rode a full bus up there (going fifteen minutes later exponentially increases the bus ridership) on Saturday morning.  I was happy to see sunshine and blue skies, but it didn't last, with increasing clouds throughout the day.  It was plenty warm, however, with temperatures in the 30-40 F range.

The warm temperatures kept the snow fairly soft but honestly, the snow wasn't terrific.  It was fine and the coverage is there.  Every single part of Alta was open, including Baldy and East Castle.  And since there hadn't been any new snow for a while (after a whole winter of regular storms cycling through), absolutely everything was tracked out.

Gathering clouds

There were lots and lots of people in the morning and there were innumerable instances of lift line shenanigans.  We skied the Collins singles line the whole morning: we made one attempt to switch over to Sugarloaf but that singles line was backing up the hill to Alf's so we rope-towed it back to Wildcat base.  Lunch wasn't crowded, however, in part because it was warm enough for people to sit outside, and after lunch, when we skied Supreme, the line was way down.

Must be afternoon: no people in the background

We did find some good snow when we did a run into the gates under East Castle/the Apron, where it was soft and barely tracked out.  It was pretty good there - plus there wasn't anyone in there with us.

At 2:30 H's feet were crying uncle in his old boots so we skied out.  Figuring Milton was happy enough napping, we had a pitcher of Cutthroat (they were out of Johnny's IPA) upstairs at the Goldminer's Daughter Saloon.  Up there we talked a little with a kid - Alta employee - from Massachusetts who graduated from UMaine/Orono, did raft guiding on the Penobscot River and climbed in North Conway, New Hampshire before he moved out to Utah three years ago.   There are transplanted Easterners everywhere in Utah.  You can usually find them out on trails or on bar stools.