h's week

While I had to go back to work for the shortened week between the Christmas and New Year's holidays, H hied himself to Alta to ski each day.  The weather warmed and got sunnier as the days progressed and, correspondingly, it got busier and busier up there.  Alta strung its lift line corrals as big as they could, and still the Sugarloaf singles line backed up the hill towards Alf's.  It was nearly impossible for him to find a place to sit at lunch (unless people with empty chairs at their tables offered him one - which did actually happen).  The chairlifts stopped constantly as people struggled to load them - it isn't that difficult, folks: first you stand in line and take turns, then you sit down when the chair arrives.  There were a lot of safety bar-putters-downers.  The slopes were strewn with yard-sales as tourists popped out of their rental skis at the slightest provocation.

Looking at Devil's Castle Wednesday

View across Sunnyside Thursday

Still, H had a good time dusting off his telemark skis and getting back into the swing of things, feeling like he was skiing much better than last year.  Our cashier-friend Carrie asked him if he was unemployed, after seeing him for the fifth day in a row, and he though that was funny.  Plus, while the valley slowly got socked in with its first icky inversion of the winter, the skies stayed bright and sunny up in the mountains.  The weather is supposed to stay clear until the very start of 2017 - which means that Saturday, the last Saturday of vacation week, could be massively crowded - when a medium-sized storm, and then bitterly cold air, is supposed to move in.

Blue skies all week up there (Friday)