early advent

It's almost like shoulder season is arriving early this year.  It was the Winter that Wasn't, so the skiing is turning towards springtime and devolving quickly, yet the weather is swinging wildly from warm to cold, from sunny to rainy, and it's a little difficult to put an active weekend together.

Take Sunday, for example.  It was a much nicer day sunshine-wise but cold, and Alta was only at 14F when H got up there for skiing.  This meant that not only did the snow set up overnight, it set up rock-hard.  It was windy too, making temperatures feel much colder.  H managed three hours before calling it quits:  "It's cold and the conditions are shit.  Stopping for [tater] tots on my way home."  Who could blame him?

Not pictured: wind chill

Because A and M were waiting for it to warm up into the 30s before venturing out for their morning walk, we were at home when A's brother J called.  His flight back to Maine wasn't until 2 p.m., so he got dropped off at our house, did our walk with us and then we dropped him at the airport, with 4.25 miles under his belt.  After that, it was just difficult to motivate, if I'm honest.  There's a bunch of weeding to be done but not quite warm enough out to be comfortable for it, so that got skipped.  I did manage to pull together a peach puff pastry galette - but storebought puff pastry (accidentally vegan) barely seems like "baking," it's so easy.

Also not pictured: the baking sheet I destroyed

with the burnt-on sticky peach juice

The rest of the afternoon was spent snuggled up with the dog reading library books.  I think that's okay.

holding at 260

I mean, yikes.  Middle of March and only 260" of snowfall at Alta on the year?  And after a sunny, warm week, the base depth is down to 90".  H didn't take the earliest bus on Saturday, nor did he feel the need to hustle down to board at the first stop.  He definitely made the right call: there were only four riders on his bus.  He could see immediately upon arriving at Wildcat base that they'd lost a lot of snow during the week.  It was cloudy and overcast and the light was as flat as light can be without actually skiing in the clouds.  It was warmish, though, already in the low 40s when the lifts started turning, so the snow hadn't set up too hard overnight.  Still, he reported it as probably the worst day of the season for him.  (Just wait until Sunday!)

Kinda gloomy

Down in the valley, A and M weren't the most productive but they were fairly busy.  After laundry and the usual five mile Dimple Dell walk, they met A's brother J and his friend B from college for lunch/beers at the Hog Wallow (M waited in the car).  They were in town for some skiing, renting a place between Solitude and Brighton in Big Cottonwood Canyon.  But they'd already had at least five ski days in Colorado before arriving in SLC, and had just done two days of touring up in BCC, so they were looking for a bit of a break.  (Of course, J did swing by Solitude after lunch for an hour or two's worth of resort runs.)  The Hog Wallow was way busier than I expected, although with the skiing such crappy conditions I shouldn't have been surprised.

Our boy loves a bar

And then, at 4 p.m., H and A and M all went to meet E and K at the Watershed's dog-friendly patio for beers and vegan bar food.  We hadn't all been together since Christmas (!) so it was good to catch up.  Plus Milton charmed a couple of bikers, making new friends as he always does.  

daylight

 HOORAY FOR DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!  Yes, it's dark again in the mornings.  But not for long and - most importantly - it's light later.  Yay!  

On Sunday, H once again took the earliest bus to Alta (I mean, he's awake anyway so why not).  It was not nearly so crowded: just enough to fill the seats.  It was a beautiful day up there, bright and sunshiny, which helped to soften the snow that had set up overnight.  It was not nearly so good for off-piste skiing as it had been the day before (too heavy and sticky and solid) however, and H saw two LifeFlight helicopters taking off with folks who were not having good days.

The crowd vibing on the GMD patio

Down home, Milton and I waited a bit for the sun to come up before venturing out for our Dimple Dell walk.  The bright sun made the 40-something temperatures quite nice, and when we got home, Milton insisted on hanging out in the driveway, sun-bathing.  A was fairly productive indoors (vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, making chocolate chip cookies and lentil bolognese pasta sauce, and meal-prepping breakfast (overnight oats with blueberries and walnuts) and lunch (mango-collard green smoothies - better than they sound) for the next two work days, plus a vegan avgolemono soup and foccacia for dinner).

It's starting to look like spring: the weeds are simply flourishing and we are probably going to have to trade some kitchen time for yardwork time next weekend, just to try to get a grip on it.  Rats.  I'd rather be baking.

now 265

 Alta has gotten 56" of snow since H skied last, with a season snowfall total of 265" (still way low).  So when he went up there Saturday, it was to the best conditions of the season. Of course, he was not alone in thinking the skiing might be okay: he picked up the first bus of the day (6 a.m.) at the first stop (Historic Sandy) and while he did score a seat, it was SRO when they left.  The driver managed to cram another twenty-five or so folks on at the second stop (where H usually picks up the bus) but it was jam-packed.

H's favorite trees to ski

The snow was definitely better than it has been all season.  H took advantage and FINALLY got off the groomers; he only had two groomer runs on the day, the first from Collins to Supreme, and the last coming back down into Collins.  Instead he got first tracks on Challenger, got into the trees he likes off 3 Bears, went down Chartreuse and also off the High T, did the very steep skier's left off the front of Wildcat and had some untracked snow in the Backside when they opened that up.  He didn't get that many vertical feet because the lift lines were long, but he skied hard and had some good runs.

Dark blue over the backside

Items of note: H noticed 5-10 other people reading books in the Goldminer's Daughter Lodge while they waited for the lifts to open; he feels like quite a trendsetter.  And a guy told him he had the best mustache on the mountain, comparing it to the one worn by a Grateful Dead guitarist.

Not pretty, still tasty

Down in the valley, A and M were productive.  We did our five mile Dimple Dell walk, did a load of laundry/put away clean laundry, swept the garage and mudroom, dusted (!), made some stuff (four quarts of lentil soup, a quart and a half of black beans and monkeybread) and tried a new recipe for dinner (broccoli steaks with white bean puree and turmeric-harissa couscous).

mind the gap

 Oops - certainly didn't mean for such a long break between posts.  We went down to Moab last weekend for a friend's mother's funeral, and then I had to work long hours to make up the time (without burning a precious vacation day), so things just got away from me here.

On the trail again

It was a little surreal, being in Moab and having to do grown-up things, like wear real clothes and be places at certain times.  The funeral was at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Moab Community Church (which amazingly didn't immediately catch fire when H and I entered), then a luncheon, and then the graveside service out in Castle Valley.  The funeral was nice, actually, very personal with folks telling stories about the decedent, plus lots of songs.  And we hadn't thought to bring beer to the graveside service, but a number of folks did, so there's that.

"Whazzat?" Milton, probably

That afternoon, we hung out with our neighbor and her dog, drinking beers and getting caught up.  That was really good too and we hadn't had the chance for a while: she is a commercial fisherman who spends her late springs/summers/early falls on her boat in Alaska.

Keep 'er movin'

We did manage a little bit of trail time, much to Milton's delight, putting together a 7+ miler on Pipe Dream.  Despite the snow earlier in the week, the trail was in good shape - mostly dry and not muddy.  It wasn't heavily trafficked either, although we did meet a couple of nice dogs out with their people.

Here come the spring flowers!

And finally, to wrap up the adulting, our hot water heater/tank needs to be replaced as it has no expansion tank (?) and is leaking directly onto the pilot light.  There were lukewarm showers all weekend, which wouldn't have been a problem if it was already summer.  It was a decent weekend but all things considered, I think I prefer not to have to adult so much.