whither spring

March has come in like a lion, here in northern Utah.  I had a dentist appointment on Friday: our dentist, who also skis at Alta, and I commiserated about the fact that there have been no sunny ski days for us this year (he also downgraded from a full season pass to a 10-pack, like I did) - while also recognizing that there have been far too many recent years where there's been nothing but sunny days all winter.  Alta hit 600 inches of seasonal snowfall (and then surpassed it, more later) this first weekend in March, which means that if we didn't get another snowstorm for the rest of the season, we'd still be above average snowfall.  Spoiler alert: we got another snowstorm.

But Saturday morning found H and me up at 5:30 a.m. (an ungodly hour, if you ask me) and leaving the house at 6:30 for the second-earliest ski bus of the day.  We got on, we got seats, we got up to Albion Day Lodge before it opened.  We waited just a couple minutes in the lodge' vestibule until 7:30, then went in when an employee unlocked the doors.  Then we had an hour and 45 minutes to wait until the lifts opened - but we were seated, reading our books, drinking $5 cups of mediocre coffee, which was much more pleasant than the last weekend with a 2.5 hour SRO bus ride.

$5 for this.  That's ridiculous.

When the lifts opened at 9:15, we were in the singles line at Sunnyside.  There are still great struggles with loading that six-person lift - of the first twenty chairs we saw go up, only two had a full complement of six riders.  We got on after standing in line for ten minutes or so (really not that bad) and headed straight to Supreme, which we rode until the singles line pushed out past the end of the corral (close to 10:30).  The snow was terrific.  There was deep, soft, untracked stuff to be found in the trees but even the high traffic groomers were soft.  There was no sunshine, however, with the next storm slowly pushing its way in, and the light was very flat.  I stuck to the groomers while H played around with the trees and the bumps.

Yeah, I'm standing at the second story of that cabin

After Supreme got too crowded, we moved over to Sugarloaf and quickly discovered why the lines were so short there: very windy and cold.  But the snow was so good that we stayed there anyway, doing laps.  H did a run through Chartreuse and came out beaming - no rocks with 600+ inches.  Despite my tentativeness at not being able to see well, I followed him into an off-piste section between Extrovert and Devil's Elbow which was fun, deep and soft and not at all overrun with skiers.  After that we did a run down Razorback - easy to get up that first hill with the tailwind! - and then did a Cabin Run.  So much snow!

That dorky parka is from the late 1990s

#mycoatisolderthanyou

Speaking of so much snow, since it was lunchtime, we shifted back over to Supreme and did a run through Catherine's Area.  Super fun, super deep and soft ... and I quickly realized how out of ski shape my legs have become with only skiing ten days (and sticking to the groomers most days).  My hamstrings were shrieking and my quads starting to shake, so I called it quits, skiing out through Sunnyside back to Albion base to pick up my bootbag.  

The plan had been for me to wait at the Goldminer's Daughter lodge for H so we could take the 2:39 bus together.  But the lodge was swarming with people (no place to sit) and it was starting to snow (possibility of down-canyon traffic delays with accumulation), so I just hopped on the waiting 1:39 bus instead.  H skied another hour and caught the 2:39 as planned.  

He made it down just fine but he must have been just ahead of the snow because later that night, when we checked social media, Alta had gotten eleven inches between the time H left the resort and the time he went to bed (8:30 p.m.).  In like a lion indeed.