Saturday: sunny to start, with increasing clouds; warm (36 - 46 F) to start as well, with decreasing temperatures. We decided that we could take a half-hour later bus, assuming that the crowds would be down with the mixed forecast and dearth of snow. This turned out to be a good call: with only six riders, our driver practically flew up the canyon (skipping both the Snowbird/Creekside and Alta/Goldminer's Daughter stops since no one was getting off there) and dropped us at the Albion lodge only five minutes after our usual bus would have. Even by noon there were very few people there, with the Wildcat parking lot half full and Albion's less than that. We very much appreciated the lack of crowds since we got to ride together on the same chair all day (no singles lines necessary) and had the chairs to ourselves more often than not. Surprisingly, for as few skiers as were up there, quite a lot of them were on telemark equipment, including H.
We started off skiing Sugarloaf because those trails soften up first this time of year. The snow was quite soft there too, smushing into heavy mashed potatoes but never actually getting sticky since the clouds rolled in to slow the warmth. We then moved over to Supreme for a couple runs; it was surprisingly soft given that its trails do not tend to catch much morning sun. To continue the tour, we moved to Collins where the top half was terrible: frozen and thin. Beneath the angle station was much better.
By 12:30 p.m., the light was flat, my feet were cold (silly me, I thought I could get away without my neoprene boot covers) and H's tele boots were pinching.
Sunday: cloudy and spitting snow to start, clearing by mid morning; cold (22-26 F, warming to about 33 F) and the wind was bitter. I dressed for full winter - windbreaker, down jacket, fleece layer, two base layers, heavy long johns, boot covers - even though it's the second week of April, and my toes still got so cold I had to go in to warm them up. H put on a brave face but his toes got cold too and he really could have used an additional insulating layer.
The snow? WICKED HARD. It had frozen up solid after the warm the day before and Alta just doesn't have the grooming skills (or desire) to make that shit skiable. Sugarloaf was where we stayed most of the time, sticking to Devil's Elbow and Rollercoaster. When I went in to thaw my feet, H did Extrovert which "sucked" and also Razorback which "sucked hard." We moved over to Collins, via a truly miserable, windy EBT, and found the upper half nearly bulletproof. Below the angle station was better but Corkscrew was truly awful. Nina's had the best conditions we found all day - too bad it's only about four turns long. We did one ride on Wildcat, likely our last for the season, then hustled over to Supreme. Once again, Supreme's trails surprised us by being fairly skiable - although it was obvious to avoid No. Nine Express (frozen solid bumps) and Challenger (frozen solid bumps punctuated with bare dirt).
By 11:40 my toes couldn't take it any longer, so I skied out, pausing just long enough to say hello to the resident porcupine trundling around near Alf's. H stayed out for a few more runs. But the conditions and the cold drove him inside as well and we caught the 12:30 p.m. bus down canyon. It wasn't our best spring skiing weekend - fairly typical, I guess, with how variable the weather and snow was - but gosh, the lack of crowds was a real treat.
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