that's more like it

I am pretty tired of this cough that I've had for a month.  But the fact that it is still lingering, coupled with the 14"+ that Alta was reporting Monday morning was enough to keep me home yet again.  I really struggle when the snow gets really deep and since it started out so warm, we had a feeling that it would be more heavy and less champagne-powder.  So I slept in, watched Netflix all morning and then went out around noon to shovel the 4-6" of snow that was in our driveway, which was in addition to the 4-6" H had already shoveled before he left.

With the high snow totals, we knew that traffic up the canyon would be a circus.  H got to the bus early enough for the 7 a.m. bus.  That bus didn't show up until 7:30 and with thirty people waiting, he didn't get on.  The next bus arrived a few minutes later and he squeezed onto that one.  The canyon opened at 8 a.m.; the bus crossed Wasatch Boulevard at 8:14 and actually headed up the canyon at 8:50, taking a half hour to travel that 1.25 miles.  There were numerous cars off the road both in Little Cottonwood Canyon and Big Cottonwood Canyon so the going was slow.  He finally got up to Alta at 9:50 where the corral was full.  It stayed full until after 11:30, when things loosened up.

Cold and stormy.  Finally.

Amazingly, ski patrol had much more terrain open than I would have thought.  He skied Fred's Trees and the Ballroom and while Catherine's Area was open (Rock 'N Roll was not), he did several runs in the trees off Three Bears.  The snow was very heavy, as we had thought it would be, and it was difficult to ski through unless you were on a fairly steep pitch.  Before long, things got clumped up and scraped off down to the hardpack in between the clumps.  H said that people were falling all over the place and he saw at least two people skiing on just one ski, presumably having lost the other one in the deep stuff.  He was on his Gunsmokes - which he only brings out when it's deep - and said that it was just as well that I hadn't gone because I would have struggled a lot.

H got on the 3:05 bus heading down canyon, texting me that if the trip down was anything like the trip up, I should expect to see him around 6 p.m.  But the roads were clearish and the traffic fairly light and he made it back to the park-and-ride in just an hour.  The storm looked to be sticking around for a little while longer - another 1-3" expected at our house even - with the winds picking up and temperatures dropping even further in the mountains.  Winter has finally decided to show up, better late than never.