ridin' the storm out

We like to stay pretty active here on the weekends, whether it's skiing or hiking or MTBing or cycling or camping.  Sometime it catches up to me, however, and I need a little break from getting up early on a Saturday morning, rushing around pulling breakfast and snacks and gear together and dashing out the door.  It caught up to me this past weekend: an over-performing storm cycle had brought wonderful snow to the Wasatch mountains during the week and was to continue throughout the weekend.  I couldn't get amped up for weather and traffic and lift lines and being cold so I tapped out.  While Milton and I slept in a little, did laundry, made soups and curries and brownies, met neighborhood dogs, cleaned the bathrooms, walked in Dimple Dell and read books, H went skiing.

 His goggles and his jacket froze to his beard

He got on the bus at 8:11 a.m. to standing room only.  There was tons of traffic - everyone psyched for some freshies - and it took the bus around forty minutes just to get into the mouth of the canyon.  Once on the canyon road, things went pretty quickly and he was at Alta's Wildcat base at 9:20.  It was warmer than the forecast had predicted: 15 F at the peak and low 20s F at the base, with very little wind.

It started snowing up there at 11:15 and just got heavier and heavier until it was nuking.  Alta ski patrol did rolling closures (EBT, Rock N Roll, Main Street, the Ballroom) as the day went on and in the afternoon, H's tracks were filling back up each run.  Off-piste was very soft from all the recent snow.  In a word, conditions were "GREAT."

Coming down like crazy

At 3 p.m., the powers that be closed the canyon road for avalanche abatement, planning to re-open at 4:30.  To accommodate the captive skiers, Alta kept the Collins lift running until 4:45 but the road didn't re-open until 5:10 p.m., for downhill traffic only, with the announcement that at 8:30 p.m., the town of Alta would be interlodged and anyone still up there would be up there for the night.  It took a while but several buses finally showed up and H was on one, heading down canyon at 7:40 p.m.  With the very snowy road conditions, it was slow going and he finally got home after 9 p.m., hungry and very tired, but also stoked about the skiing he'd done.