all hail spring storms

 With how the climate/weather has changed, northern Utah hardly gets any early season snow (November) any more.  December's totals have diminished too.  But March and even April?  We seem to be getting more and more spring storms.  Case in point: 37+ inches at Alta from the March 13-15 storm.  445" to date, 149" base.  Great for our water and also great for skiing.  

That looks soft

The storm had eased up enough that they didn't have to close the canyon road on Saturday morning.  H's bus was SRO but not packed like sardines; the lodge was definitely full of skiers and it took a while to get out of Wildcat base on the first chair of the day.  But after that, H was pleasantly surprised that the lift lines were not that bad: he figured that the deep snow was slowing down and tiring out the more inexperienced skiers.  And it was definitely deep.  Nothing had been groomed which meant that the runs got bumped up quickly; the continuing snow and flat light meant you couldn't really see the bumps until you hit them.  It was another day that A wouldn't have enjoyed skiing but H had a great time.  He skied all across the mountain - Main Street, the Ballroom, Devil's Castle and the Backside were closed for avalanche work - enjoying Fred's Trees, Chartreuse Nose, the steeps and trees around Supreme Bowl, the Supreme gullies, No. Nine Express, the 3 Bears Trees ... it was a good day.

Mustache compliment of the day: A local guy with his own, much narrower handlebar mustache, told H that he'd be a shoe-in to win the Alta Snowflake Festival's annual mustache contest.

Meanwhile, A and M were fairly productive.  We did our 4.9 mile Dimple Dell loop, plus another mile or so later that afternoon just because; did laundry and changed the sheets (still flannel); made chocolate chip cookies and an apricot crumble; ground chia seeds for overnight oats and made vegan "parmesan;" finished one library book and started another one.  It was a pretty good day in the valley too.