the luck of the irish

That overnight storm (Friday into Saturday) was an overproducer, dropping a good 9" on Alta to start the day.  It would continue snowing all day as well, providing free refills and amping up the avalanche danger.  I continued my recent trend of psyching myself out and didn't go up (instead making scratch brownies and curried red lentil soup, as well as ticking some chores off my list) but H did, and eagerly. 

When he got up to Alta at 8:25 a.m., he reported that Goldminer's Daughter Lodge was full and the corral was half full with 50 minutes until opening.  By the time he got out there to stake his claim in the singles line, he was pretty much standing on the front steps to the skiers' services building and it took him 35 minutes to actually get on a chair once the lifts opened.  Because of all the recent new snow - Alta finally hit the 100" base depth mark on St. Patrick's Day - a lot of terrain was closed.  The best available skiing was thus on the front side which kept the Collins lift very busy all day.

Top o' High Rustler

But it was worth it because the snow was so good.  Because of the avalanche danger, ski patrol had closed Main Street, which runs right along the base of Mt. Baldy and which is often closed when there's a lot of new snow.  The in-bounds slide danger was high enough on Sunday, however, that patrol closed Mambo too, which I've never seen them do and which is the main intermediate run down from the top of Collins.  Skier traffic was instead routed into Spring Valley and Strawberry until skiers got to the Watson shelter.  None of this bothered H at all, who happily did run after run in Fred's Trees, Sunspot, Racecourse and Watson's Line, etc., finding untracked snow each time, despite the skier traffic.  He even jumped back onto the High Traverse and did a run down High Rustler.

At 1:45 p.m., he had managed to ski himself tired what with "[snow] and no lunch plus skiing off-piste [Friday]."  Also, Powder Mountain announced a 30-minute lightning hold around then, with the arrival of a cold front, and he had no interest in being caught out in any of that.  Wise man.  He caught a down-canyon bus and got home in reasonable time.  I'm not saying for sure, but there MIGHT have been napping on the couch before dinner.