Late Thursday night, my youngest cousin showed up all the way from Brooklyn, in town for a ski trip with friends. She and I hung out on Friday, taking Milton for a walk and catching up, while H went back up to Alta. He managed to get on the bus at 7:12 (standing room only) and made much better time, arriving at Albion base before 8. The snow had already started up there, with 43-64" expected (by Monday morning) with this storm. Atmospheric river indeed! Down in the valley, we didn't get any precipitation until the evening, which prompted my cousin to connect with her friends early: they were staying in Park City and we all thought it would be better to get through Parley's Canyon before it started snowing in earnest.
On Saturday, it rained all day in the valley. It was pretty warm too (around 44 F), and that even translated to warmer temperatures up at Alta. H got on a bus at 7, which was then staged at the front of the line of traffic while they waited for avalanche control in the canyon. There had been rumors that the canyon might not open at all but they must not have gotten quite as much snow as they'd thought, as they got going at 8:15 and he got up to the lodge at 8:40. Because of the warmer temperatures, the snow was very wet and sticky and H predicted that it would get bumped up quickly.
They closed the canyon again at 12 noon for more avalanche mitigation, with the plan to reopen at 3 p.m. When H texted me that update, he said: "Might take a while to get home" anticipating the line of taillights snaking downhill. At 3 p.m., when the canyon reopened, he texted me again, saying that since there was practically no one skiing - he was skiing right onto the lift at Sugarloaf - he was going to stay until the lift closed at 4 and hoped to catch the 4:39 bus down. He did, and although the traffic was still heavy, he managed to get home around 6 p.m., bearing a gift of two new, unopened packs of hand warmers that someone had dropped.
They closed the canyon road Saturday night, intending to reopen it at 8 a.m. Instead, the storm moved in, Alta and Snowbird went into interlodge lockdown, and the canyon didn't reopen until 10 a.m. Monday morning. Brighton got 37 inches in 48 hours; Alta got 29 inches; little Sundance got 31 inches; and we got around 20 inches ourselves, right at the house! We haven't had even close to that much snow at home since 2019, when my brother and niece came to visit.
So the ski week ended strong for snowpack but sort of fizzled out for actually getting up to the mountain to ski. I had intended to go with H on Monday, but I really struggle when it's that deep. We also knew that the traffic would be insane with such a late opening: it could conceivably be a three hour bus ride, followed by maybe three hours of skiing, followed by another three hour bus ride home instead. We opted to stay home and shovel (and shovel and shovel) instead.
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