cold front

Better late than never, our weather pattern has been changing over the last couple of weeks.  Here are Alta's most recent/running snow totals:

 

The snow from this past weekend (February 24 and 25) was, by all reports, very light and fluffy because temperatures had plummeted.  It was 1F first thing Saturday morning up on the mountain, with gusty winds all day; Sunday started out cold (3F) but warmed up a little as the clouds moved off.  With the winds, however, wind chill temperatures were in the -20s.  And, full confession here, neither H nor I went skiing. 

We have been suffering from LSA (low snowpack anxiety), as all northern Utah skiers have been this year.  In addition, however, there has been a tinge of malaise where we've been so disillusioned with the skiing that even when it improves, we can't muster the enthusiasm to go when conditions are bad (like wind chill in the -20s, for example). I'm guessing we'll snap out of it soon: current forecast models are indicating a monster storm approaching, with the possibility for 30" in the Cottonwood canyons, if the storm doesn't dump all its snow in the Sierra Nevadas first. 

that's more like it

I am pretty tired of this cough that I've had for a month.  But the fact that it is still lingering, coupled with the 14"+ that Alta was reporting Monday morning was enough to keep me home yet again.  I really struggle when the snow gets really deep and since it started out so warm, we had a feeling that it would be more heavy and less champagne-powder.  So I slept in, watched Netflix all morning and then went out around noon to shovel the 4-6" of snow that was in our driveway, which was in addition to the 4-6" H had already shoveled before he left.

With the high snow totals, we knew that traffic up the canyon would be a circus.  H got to the bus early enough for the 7 a.m. bus.  That bus didn't show up until 7:30 and with thirty people waiting, he didn't get on.  The next bus arrived a few minutes later and he squeezed onto that one.  The canyon opened at 8 a.m.; the bus crossed Wasatch Boulevard at 8:14 and actually headed up the canyon at 8:50, taking a half hour to travel that 1.25 miles.  There were numerous cars off the road both in Little Cottonwood Canyon and Big Cottonwood Canyon so the going was slow.  He finally got up to Alta at 9:50 where the corral was full.  It stayed full until after 11:30, when things loosened up.

Cold and stormy.  Finally.

Amazingly, ski patrol had much more terrain open than I would have thought.  He skied Fred's Trees and the Ballroom and while Catherine's Area was open (Rock 'N Roll was not), he did several runs in the trees off Three Bears.  The snow was very heavy, as we had thought it would be, and it was difficult to ski through unless you were on a fairly steep pitch.  Before long, things got clumped up and scraped off down to the hardpack in between the clumps.  H said that people were falling all over the place and he saw at least two people skiing on just one ski, presumably having lost the other one in the deep stuff.  He was on his Gunsmokes - which he only brings out when it's deep - and said that it was just as well that I hadn't gone because I would have struggled a lot.

H got on the 3:05 bus heading down canyon, texting me that if the trip down was anything like the trip up, I should expect to see him around 6 p.m.  But the roads were clearish and the traffic fairly light and he made it back to the park-and-ride in just an hour.  The storm looked to be sticking around for a little while longer - another 1-3" expected at our house even - with the winds picking up and temperatures dropping even further in the mountains.  Winter has finally decided to show up, better late than never.

before the storm

We woke up and looked at the weather and webcams Sunday morning.  It was overcast and gray, with the storm positioning itself to move into the area in the afternoon.  I weighed the pros (skiing) with the cons (flat light, windy, sore throat and cough) and opted out for myself, but encouraged H to go lest he get too fidgety from sitting around the house all day.  He got up and took the 7:30 bus up to Alta; I slept in an hour, then took the 8:30 bus up to Alta because I had to pick up my skis from the ski shop.

Where the sky matches the snow

Things at the ski areas were noticeably less busy than they had been on Saturday.  I figured that most people had skied in the sunshine on Saturday, decided to skip the flat light on Sunday and then planned to go back on Monday for the new snow.  There were only a handful of people on my bus and when I got up to Alta, there were so few people in the corral at 9:20 a.m. that I easily found H standing in the singles line.  I said hi, grabbed my skis from the ski shop and was back on the bus heading down canyon at 9:30 a.m.  I was the only rider the whole way down.

H was on his tele/NTN set-up and had a pretty successful day, other than when some jackass ran into him and knocked him down (H was unhurt, luckily).  He skied until 2 and then came back down.  The storm was just starting up as he left, with winds picking up and snow starting to spit down.  They were forecasting pretty good amounts to come in overnight so we knew that Monday would be a completely different story, conditions-wise.  Let it snow - we need it.

back at it

By the time the weekend rolled around again, I couldn't stand it any longer: I wanted to go skiing, cough be damned.  That midweek storm brought 19" and rolled out, leaving sunny skies and mild temperatures (16F to start, warming to high 30s) on Saturday.  H and I hopped on the 7:30 a.m. bus and soon enough were back up at Alta.  We weren't the only ones taking advantage of the nice conditions - it was busy up there, especially with the long holiday weekend folks in attendance.

The snow was pretty nice, firm but not too scraped off.  Everything was all skied out, of course, except for Devil's Castle which ski patrol was working on all morning; they opened just the first third of it around 11:30 and that got tracked out fast.  We moved from lift to lift, trying to find the shortest lift lines.  Sugarloaf was really busy all morning - with people doing laps while they waited for the Castle to open, I think - as was Supreme, so we actually stayed on Collins for most of the day.  When we got bored with the groomers, we did several runs in and around lower Sunspot.

In the Ballroom

We went in for lunch early, hoping to miss the crowds.  When we came back out, we did a couple of Supreme runs.  We're really pretty disappointed with the new Supreme.  Now that it is a quad lift that loads right outside Alf's lodge, many more beginners ride it.  Then, when they get up there, they are way over their heads with trying to ski down.  To get away from everyone, we ducked into the gates under Devil's Apron, contenting ourselves with playing around in the trees there.  I know it's not really difficult skiing but it sure is fun.

After a month of no skiing, my legs called it quits at 2:30 p.m.  I dropped my skis off at the Alta ski shop (10% discount for season passholders), where the tune tech - originally from Lake George, New York - promised me a "Killington edge" on my skis.  You know, sharp.  We hopped on the bus and headed home.  That evening, as we watched the Olympics, we could hear the wind picking up outside, forerunner to the storm that was heading our way.  It looks like winter is finally going to find us.

a drop in the bucket

A little storm moved through last Saturday, as H and I hunkered down at home to watch the Olympics (and I coughed and coughed).  We didn't feel like we were missing much skiing-wise that day, since the Alta webcams showed that it was dark and windy, and the snow wasn't stacking up very fast.  It kept going through the evening, however, and ended up leaving behind about eight inches of new snow - just a drop in the echoingly empty bucket that is the current northern Utah snowpack, but welcome nonetheless.

Now, that's a view

The storm moved out overnight, leaving mostly blue skies for Sunday.  With my cough, I wasn't up for skiing myself.  But I sensed H was getting fidgety and I gladly sent him up to Alta for the day.  He said that the bus was busy but not completely packed, and while the initial corral at Collins was full, things seemed to clear out fairly quickly.  Eight inches didn't do a whole lot of good but it did soften things up a bit and he enjoyed moderately soft turns until around 2 before catching the bus back home.

That little storm seems to have woken things up snowstorm-wise around here too.  We got a nice Thursday storm and now, as I write this on February 17th, what may be the biggest storm of the season is heading our way.  Better late than never - bring it on.

love the olympics

With recent traveling and then this past weekend of holding the couch down in between fits of coughing, I have not been skiing for three weekends in a row - that's crazy!  To be sure, I don't think I've been missing all that much but still.  My 2017/2018 ski days count is going to be way down.

But the Olympics are on, and that's some consolation.  H and I love the Olympics (except for all the figure skating) and we pack our DVR full of everything we can get (except the figure skating), which enables us to fast-forward through all the commercials (and the figure skating).  We are omnivorous viewers but we especially enjoy the cross-country skiing, because the athletes just collapse, gasping and drooling at the finish line, and the snowboard cross, which is just such a nutso event. NPR has a page where you can see where the U.S. athletes come from; unsurprisingly, there are a bunch who call Utah home (sixteen) and a total of twenty-one athletes are enrolled at Westminster College in Salt Lake City (they have a deal with the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Federation: four days of class and three days on the hill).

So even though the snow here isn't what it should be, and until my lungs get back to where they should be, we can appreciate those talented, driven athletes out there on the snow and ice of the 2018 PyeongChang Games.

we could use a change in the weather

Thanks for your patience with the lack of posts around here.  As it turns out, both H and I had to travel recently, which sort of threw us all out of our usual routine.  I didn't ski at all the last two weekends; H skied both days two weekends ago and then just Saturday this past weekend, crying uncle at noon because the conditions were so bad.  We are definitely closing in on Utah's worst snow year of all time if things don't turn around soon.  It's always possible that February, March and April will bring storm after storm after storm, and we have had very snowy springs over the last couple of years.  But at this point, it doesn't look like anything significant is going to hit us until mid-February at the earliest. 

 

H's new set-up in action

Chair with a view, January 28th