Wednesday was sort of business as usual. Alta had gotten a little more snow since Christmas (the day before) and the skies were mostly sunny. The ski bus was full but he managed to get a seat; once up at Alta's Wildcat base at 8:20 a.m., the corral was already filling up, with 55 minutes to go before they opened the chairlifts. Alf's was very crowded and he had to deal with all sorts of nonsense in the lift lines. He was on his alpine skis and poked around all over the resort, jumping on the 2:30 p.m. bus for home.
Wednesday at Alta
On Thursday, while I was dealing with some valley snow on my morning commute, the ski bus was totally full. Alta had had more new snow and people were there for it. It was overcast and cloudy all day, with flat light, but since he was on his telemark set-up, the visibility wasn't too much of an issue.
Thursday's scenery
What was an issue was some of the worst down-canyon traffic congestion in Little Cottonwood Canyon's history. For some reason, the police were not in place at the base of the canyon in the morning, turning back people in 2WD cars without snow tires, so at the end of the day, when there had been some snow build-up on the road, there were multiple slide-offs and traffic was at a standstill. The buses were late (as they usually are on snow days) but H managed to get on one at about 3:10 p.m. The bus then proceeded to be stopped in traffic for more than 2.5 hours on the bypass road. From his texts to me (I had rushed home to let Milton out), there was an accident at Entry B in Snowbird, a badly-parked truck blocking traffic between Creekside and Snowbird Center, a Kia Soul halfway off the road and a major slide off around Tanners Flats. At about 6 p.m., his bus driver got the okay to skip the Snowbird stops and just continue down the canyon; once past Snowbird, traffic was moving, albeit slowly. He got home around 7:45 p.m., making that the new record for long-ass down-canyon bus rides.
Friday: Backside
It was with a little trepidation that H got back on the ski bus Friday morning. It all went smoothly, however, and wasn't quite so crowded due to the very cold temperatures. It was 3F at the base, around 0 at the summit and with wind chills between -20 and -30 F. For once I wasn't all that mad that I was at work.
Friday: Catherine's Area
On his alpine gear, he got off the groomers a bit, but still found rocks on Extrovert, Chartreuse and in Catherine's Area. Still, with the cold he didn't have to wait in lift lines - but the lodges were all full all day, with people trying to get warm. He caught the 3 p.m. bus (a little late but not overly full) and was back at home at 4:15 p.m., even with stopping to wash the truck.
I guess the moral of the story is that you never really know what you're going to get with vacation week skiing, so be prepared for everything.
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