washout

Boy oh boy, did we get April showers this past weekend.  With warm temperatures taking the snow level all the way up to nearly 11,000 feet, this meant nothing but rain down at the ski areas' bases -
Alta even closed early for the day.  Poor Powder Mountain, who opened late due to low snow conditions, was forced to close for the season a week early as their creeks opened up and rose with the rainfall.

Needless to say, we did not go up on Saturday to ski in the rain (my outerwear is old enough to have worn off all its initial water-proofing and the spray-on updates only go so far) and when we checked out the mountain cameras Sunday morning, it looked socked in and unpleasant.  With rain up so high, anything off-piste froze up overnight and much of Alta was closed.  Flat light and groomers didn't sound appealing.

So we were homebodies instead, timing our walks/runs around passing showers and addressing the stacks of laundry hitherto ignored.  I also did a bunch of cooking: brownies-from-scratch, a New Mexico-style green chile stew, coconut jerky (doesn't absorb the marinade well, to be honest) and my first attempt at bao, steamed Chinese-style buns.  The bao were fun - not something I'd attempt on a weeknight, but the steamed dough was fluffy and soft and I'll definitely do some again.

The clock is ticking on how much more skiing we'll get.  Here's hoping we don't get too many more washout weekends before the resorts close up for summer.