christmasy

It feels like it's been forever since we've seen the sun: nine of the last ten days have been cloudy.  With these clouds, we've been getting some moderate snowfall up in the mountains, so that's good.

Christmas Eve: East Greeley scene 

H skied Christmas Eve all day (and ended up running for the 4:45 bus to come home) and went all over the mountain: Extrovert, Sunspot, Racecourse, off the High Traverse, East Greeley, Eagle's Nest.  It lightly snowed all day then started coming down heavy at the end - he said it was practically dark for the last two runs. 

In the vicinity of Eagle's Nest, with the rope tow far below

And in case you were wondering, the tourists have definitely arrived.  The corrals were packed, there were all kinds of lift line shenanigans (how is it that these people don't know how to load a chairlift?) and it was difficult to find a place at Alf's for lunch, even with all the new tables. 

 Christmas Day: Backside

Christmas Day was relatively busy in the morning ... and also cloudy/snowing all day.  Visibility was pretty poor but the snow was pretty good.  To be honest, these photos don't look like Christmastime photos - there's quite a lot of snow.

 Christmas Day: Catherine's Area

I had to go back to work for a few hours for Boxing Day (we were heading down to Moab for a long weekend) but H managed to get back up to Alta for a morning of skiing.  The heaviest snowfall had moved on by then and some cold air was coming in behind it.  He only skied 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. and his toes were still achy that night from how cold they got.  I wasn't sorry to have missed that, although H is definitely pulling ahead of me in the ski days now (like he always does).

Boxing Day: looking up at Devil's Castle