gorgeous day / no new snow

After a nice storm early in the week which dropped about 18" up at Alta, northern Utah has become mired in a truly terrible weather pattern: a massive high pressure ridge keeping the storms out of the area and growing inversions in the valleys.  Knowing that it didn't take any time for that new snow to get skied off, I again opted out of skiing on Saturday, wanting to take care of some things around the house.

Love that color blue (although would prefer to see it dark and stormy)

So while I did laundry, baked two batches of cookies, worked on boxes to mail back east for Christmas, dusted and put out some Christmas decorations, H took the ski bus up to Alta to get his runs in.  He ended up skiing until 2 p.m., at which point it was Miller time (or more correctly, PBR time).  He reported that the conditions were definitely better than last time - but also it was such a nice day up there that he didn't want to quit.

Nice day indeed

Notable mentions on the day:  (1) H got carded (!!!), buying his PBR at Goldminer's Daughter; and (2) he made a new friend on the bus ride down: a ten year old Snowbird race team member who had had a great day on the hill and who was totally bummed that he had to go to a birthday party in Idaho Falls on Sunday instead of more skiing.  At this point, all my chores in good order, I was willing to hit the slopes on his behalf.