under the guns

When you ski the east, you get used to skiing under the snow guns: eastern resorts make a lot of snow in the early season, putting down a solid base for the natural snow to come.  It helps that they have more water out there from which to draw too.  Our old ski mountain, Sunday River, has over 2,000 snow guns and pumps 8,100 gallons a minutes from the nearby river (and then, when the snow melts, it all goes back down into that river).  They can cover 90% of the skiable terrain with manmade snow.  That's in sharp contrast to the western resorts.  Historically, western resorts have gotten so much natural snow - even in the early season - that they've barely needed any snow-making.  Alta has just a handful of snow guns (probably around twenty but certainly no more than thirty, and not much coverage for 2,200 skiable acres), mostly located on the high traffic trails like Corkscrew, Mambo, Devil's Elbow and Sugar Bowl.  And on Saturday, they were all running, bombarding skiers and chairlift riders with the stinging pellets.

The bus ride up was actually pretty crowded - more Snowbird employees than skiers, though.  It was partly sunny, high teens to the low 20s, with increasing clouds throughout the day and snow starting just after noon.  Although it wasn't terribly crowded, it seemed like it was because until we get more snow, Alta has instituted a new load-every-other-chair rule, trying to keep the few skiable trails from getting too congested.  After the first-chair crush, the crowd thinned out at Collins so H and I were able to ride together.  Over at Sugarloaf, however, where the snow was better, the crowd stayed constant and we rode singles.

Before the little storm rolled in

Ski Patrol got the backside opened for a little while although we only saw one or two brave souls venturing in there; then, in the afternoon as the puny little storm moved in, Patrol closed it so as not to lose any tourists in the fog.  The highlight of our day actually involved Ski Patrol: we saw two patrollers working with Banjo the avalanche dog, trying to get him comfortable riding on his handler's shoulders while skiing.  Banjo clearly preferred to be on the snow on his own four feet, however.  The level of those dogs' training is impressive: even as he exuberantly bounced ahead, Banjo was constantly checking back with his handler, making sure he was doing what he was supposed to.

The snow picked up around 1 and that was when we called it quits.  I was getting a little chilled and my toes were very cold at that point.  We had a half hour until our bus so we were able to have a couple of beers in the Goldminer's Daughter lodge while we swapped out our boots; once on board the bus, it wasn't crowded at all - too early for the Snowbird employees to be heading home, I guess.