reconnecting

The clouds moved out Saturday evening, bringing bluebird skies and skied-out snow to Alta for Sunday.  We figured it would be pretty busy with the gorgeous weather but while the lift lines were fairly long, the bus was just not that crowded.  It was a little chilly to start out, with the sun not yet over the mountains.  All it took was an off-piste run to start to warm up, however, and by late morning, people had started to peel off layers.

In the Ballroom, below Main Chute

We started out with three runs on Collins: two groomers to get our legs under us again and then one through the Ballroom where the wind-buffed snow was still a little soft and easy to turn in, even for me on my short Salomons.  We segued to Sugarloaf at that point, going into the Backside via the low traverse.  Once across Yellow Trail and around the corner, East Greely was chunked up but still pretty soft as the sun hadn't yet started to bake it.  We found a couple of scratchy spots on the Glitch/Glatch gullies where the newer snow had sloughed away but generally speaking the conditions were holding up.  Our next run was down Chartreuse which was well-bumped and mostly soft, with just a couple scraped-off bits.

Old friends, together again

The big news of the day was that at 11 a.m. we met up with one of H's old friends, Ted, whom we hadn't seen since our wedding 15+ years ago.  He is based in California and recently bought a Park City condo, and was gracious enough to drive over to ski with us.  Alta wasn't new to him but since he hadn't skied there for about a decade, he was happy to let us tour-guide him around.  Ted is a good skier so we took him down Chatreuse and Devil's Castle (once they got it open) and Catherine's Area and the Supreme Bowl and the trees below Devil's Apron ... even though hiking wasn't his favorite thing, he bore it all with good humor and a couple of water bottles.  It was wonderful to reconnect with him and very nice to see that it was as if no time had passed at all since we'd last seen him.

After Ted headed back to Park City, we did a couple more runs, venturing into West Rustler.  It was my favorite conditions - low-profile, soft bumps - but my legs were fatigued from the earlier part of the day spent hiking and skiing moguls, so I had to call it a day after that run.  We hopped on the bus (the bus driver, seeing how short I am, actually settled the bus down so I didn't have to step up so high, and was all "Come on, you can do it!) and scored seats for the ride down.  With the sunshine, warmth and mellow vibes, it had felt like a day of spring skiing, right in the middle of February; hopefully we'll get some more winter before this season is over.  And hopefully it won't take us another fifteen years to reconnect again with friends!