farewell supreme

As I mentioned, H ended up having to work for most of last weekend.  But by early Sunday afternoon, he was able to get away and go up to Alta for a couple of hours, just long enough to say farewell to Supreme.  Alta does a rolling close at the end of every season: the Supreme and Cecret chairs close first; then the next weekend there's the official closing of daily operations, the last weekend for Sugarloaf chair and all the shenanigans of the Franks World Classic Ski Competition; and then they reopen for one final weekend, with just the Collins and Sunnyside chairs running.

Looking back at the chair from 

the entry to Catherine's Area

 

View from Catherine's

It makes sense that they're closing, I guess, even with a 90-ish inch base: when H got up there Sunday afternoon, the Wildcat parking lot was less than half full and people were heading down canyon at a constant pace.  He skied onto the lift every time, never waiting in any lines - there just wasn't anybody there, relatively speaking.

Our favorite glade in Catherine's Area

H went straight up Collins and over to Supreme, wanting to get as many runs in there as he could before the chair closed at 3:30.  He managed to run the hill, starting with a run all the way in at Catherine's Area (and he figured that that was possibly only the fourth time he'd been in there all winter, what with his telemark focus keeping him on piste) and then successive runs down Challenger, No. 9 Express, Sleepy Hollow to Three Bears, Big Dipper and Rock N' Roll.

Looking up Supreme chair one last time

When Supreme closed, H moved to Sugarloaf and then when it closed at 4 p.m., finished out the day on Collins, each time nearly nabbing the last chair of the day.  What had been partly cloudy skies cleared into a pretty nice day and the snow, while very soft, was not nearly as sticky as it has been earlier this year.  He didn't linger after everything closed down at 4:30 p.m., having to get back down canyon and back to work, but he was glad to have been able to squeeze in at least a few runs and putting himself over his 1,000,000 vertical feet goal.  The end of the ski season is within sight and now, every run counts.

Until next season