stormy saturday

 While we were down in Moab, northern Utah got a very nice storm: Alta ended up with 87" out of that storm cycle alone.  They also got avalanches, closed canyon roads and an interlodge, but the new snow was both needed and welcomed.  A friend of mine went boarding at Brighton on Saturday and reported that it was fantastic riding ... and I'm glad he had such a good day because then on Monday, he went boarding at Brighton and ended up both dislocating AND fracturing his shoulder.  Season over - at least he went out with good conditions.

By the time we got up there, on the weekend after the long holiday weekend, it was just in time for a smaller refresher system to move in.  I studied the weekend forecast closely and determined that Saturday was the better day for me: windy but warmer, with the snow not starting until around 2 p.m.  It was windy and warm all right - starting at 30 F at the base when we started and warming to around 37 F - but the snow started at 10 a.m. and kept going all day.  It didn't amount to a whole lot, just enough to make things soft again, but you could also tell how much the big storm had helped cover things.  H declared it the best conditions of the season (so far).

I know we have a lot of photos just like

this but I really like this one

We took an earlier bus up (6:30) and it wasn't crowded at all.  We hung out in GMD reading and then retired to the basement locker room to put on our boots.  We alternated going through the singles lines and the main corrals at the various lifts, depending on what the lines looked like.  After getting out of the Wildcat base area, we went straight to the Supreme lift and did several runs there.  We switched to Sugarloaf where the lines were much shorter; the strong, chilly wind on the ride up explained why there were so few people there.  After that one ride up, we went back to Collins and stayed there most of the day (unusual for me): the lines weren't terrible - despite all the dingdongs ducking the ropes and cutting us off in the singles line - the runs are longer and the snow was really quite good.

We had planned our layers based on it not snowing until 2 p.m., and the fact that it started in the morning instead had us damp and starting to get chilled by 1 p.m.  No worries: we hopped on the 1:39 bus and headed home, where Milton was glad to see us.