ooh snow

If you follow the northern Utah news or ski social media, you probably know that a big ol' storm came through Thursday and Friday, leaving fantastic inches of snow for us.  Alta reported a 42" storm total.  That sort of snow can cover a LOT of rocks (and help bring our snowpack towards "normal").  Neither of us could ski on Friday but we geared up for Saturday, albeit with a little trepidation about what the crowds would be like on a holiday weekend after a storm.

To try to get ahead of the crowds a bit, we took the bus before our usual bus; it was crowded, but not the most crowded we've seen.  The roads were actually clear but it took a while to get up there simply from all the other traffic.  We got to Wildcat base at time our normal bus (with normal conditions and traffic) would have arrived, but ahead of everyone else stacked up behind us.  Although the lodge was crowded, we somehow found two chairs and took our time getting ready.  The lines extended far past the corral - although not as much of a mob scene as we have seen before - but everyone was very chill and civilized and the singles line moved much faster than I expected.

All smiles in Catherine's Area

At the top of Collins, everyone else seemed to be hiking up the High T so we did a warm up run down the front side.  H immediately dropped into Fred's Trees while I did a combination of groomer and off-piste.  We were both wearing our powder skis and our legs reminded us immediately that we hadn't been doing much off-piste so far this year.  I could tell that H was itching to charge off into all that snow so I suggested that we split up until 11 a.m., and meet up at the bottom of the Supreme lift then.  That way he could ski what he wanted without waiting (and waiting and waiting) for me and I could ski what I wanted without feeling guilty that I was holding him up.

While he did more Fred's Trees and Racecourse and Sunspot and lower High Rustler and some of the Backside, I had planned to go straight to Supreme to ski the gullies.  But Supreme was on a delayed opening and there were hordes of people waiting for it to start up.  Even once they started loading the chair, there were tons and tons of people in line - whereas I was able to pretty much ski right onto the lift at Sugarloaf.  I played around over there, on Razorback, some Cabin Runs, down Chartreuse/Nose and lower Extrovert. 

Snowy trees off of 3 Bears

At the agreed-upon time, H and I met up at Supreme, decided not to deal with the hordes of people and kept skiing Sugarloaf before an early lunch.  After lunch, the Supreme crowds had dispersed so we headed up and went into Catherine's Area.  The initial bootpack up was still too soft so we had to sidestep (exhausting!) and then went into the second meadow.  The snow was very soft but also pretty heavy.  The combination of heavy snow and tracked out/bumped up conditions made us both realize that we were on the wrong skis, despite the depth: our powder skis just don't turn easily.  We stuck it out at Supreme, doing the gates off Rock N'Roll and a run through the trees off of 3 Bears.

By 2 p.m. my legs were done, suffering from the combination of heavy snow and unwieldy skis, so I skied out and caught the 2:30 p.m. bus.  H kept going for a while longer - including the first run of the year down Challenger and a dip into the Supreme Bowl, which was quite bumped up.  He just managed to catch the 3:15 bus home, where our afternoon and evening was taken up by soup- and brownie-making.  The day had been full of surprises - warm temperatures, heavy snow, quick lift lines for the numbers of skiers present - the upcoming unsettled weather may bring us some more.