apparently winter ain't over yet

 Time is running out on the 2023/2024 ski season.  Not that you'd know it from the weather.  Although it hit 70 in SLC on Wednesday - and it was glorious - a cold front started pushing in onThursday (windy), arrived Friday (plummeting temperatures) and the system settled into the Cottonwood Canyons overnight into Saturday.  We got a dusting of snow by Saturday morning but by 3 p.m. Saturday, Alta had gotten 18" in the last 24 hours and, to look at the mountain webcams, it wasn't letting up anytime soon.  It was also cold: 20F at the base and 9F at the top.

I'm over it with winter conditions.  Call me a wimp, a fair weather skier, but I'm tired of being wet and cold and I want a goggle tan.  So I didn't go.  The valley weather was better than forecasted (the forecasts have not been that accurate all winter, IMHO), but in the 30s and mostly cloudy, with off and on flurries.  Milton and I did a good walk in the morning, including him getting a game of off-leash chase with a neighborhood dog.  And then I was productive: pumpkin-cranberry-walnut muffins, chocolate chip cookies, baked tofu, peach preserves and chickpea/walnut taco "meat" for dinner, plus dealing with a ridiculous amount of laundry.

H of course went skiing, up and at 'em and on the 6:30 bus.  It wasn't terribly crowded so he got a seat, reporting that it was snowing hard and the upper canyon road was sketchy after Snowbird.  After a slightly delayed opening, he had a great day (morning) of skiing, starting off Collins in Fred's Trees and then just skiing off the High Traverse for pretty much the whole time.  There wasn't much else open because patrol hadn't cleared slides yet, but the conditions were deep and soft and lots of fun.  He did try a run over at Sugarloaf but it was windier there and colder, so he went back to Collins, did a ten minute warm-up in the lodge for his hands and feet, and then kept skiing.  

By mid-morning they were posting that the canyon road would close for avalanche mitigation at 1:30.  He was sad to have to leave early but better that then potentially getting stuck up the canyon into the evening.  The snow was really stacking up on the upper road too, making the bus ride down rather more exciting than he would have liked.  The bus slid off the road a couple of times, but with its chains on managed to back up each time and get back on the road.  When they got to the left turn into Snowbird center, the bus driver didn't even attempt to go in and when they got down to the turn at Tanners Flat, the bus actually fishtailed.  Below that the snow tapered off, however, and the bottom bit was just wet.  H said that was the gnarliest bus ride in all our years of riding the ski bus - I think I'm glad I missed it.

The stormy weather did give H an impressive ice-mustache, occasioning several compliments, including  "You can grow a grizzly bear mustache and I can only grow a squirrel!"