Day 56: Now that's what I'm talking about!
Storm total: 31" and still coming down. Pat, Tony Crocker and I rode up together. We were in line at the mouth of the canyon at 8:20, the road opened around 9:05 or 9:10 and we were at GMD by 9:35. Our first run was to Cheater's Thirds to Greeley Bowl, and the latter was truly heli-quality untracked. It was so good that we did a second Greeley Bowl to finish it off.
By then, the Collins line had grown to a size that rivaled the crapshow on Monday, so we moved to Wildcat upon learning that Comma Chute was open. Tony and Pat have now had their Comma Chute virginity deflowered. The upper part was absolutely beautiful, lightly tracked and deep snow. The chute itself was skied but loose sluff, precisely what you'd expect in such tight quarters.
We had a miserable experience getting back. The buses were done for the morning, and the Alta Shuttle driver blew past all of us even though she had only one passenger in her minibus. This will be the subject of an upcoming editorial -- this is a tourism business, and whether you're a local or a visitor you're still a tourist in a tourist economy. Alta cannot afford to have indifferent, or in this case even downright miserable employees representing the town or the ski area, and even though the employee in question works for Canyon Transport it reflects badly upon the town and the ski area as a whole. And Canyon Transport in this case is a contractor of the town. This driver already has a widely known reputation for a truly miserable attitude, and this behavior is absolutely inexcusable. All at her stop were forced to walk back to Alta from the Bypass Road, including a member of Alta Ski Patrol who was waiting with us.
Our next run was into my favorite secret spot. There were two visitors from Baltimore who were asking an awful lot of questions as we worked our way over there. Finally I asked them, "Do you want the run of your life?"
The both nodded their agreement.
"Well, then," I responded, "Follow us."
By this time the lines on Collins and Wildcat had evaporated, largely due to the opening of Supreme. Upon our arrival there, however, the line was the biggest that I've ever seen for that lift. We opted to lunch at Alf's instead to let the line dissipate a bit, a plan that worked quite well by the time we got back to Supreme. We lapped Catherine's Area twice, once all the way out to Last Chance (upon which Crocker whined incessantly about a "grunt to reward ratio" even though we skied untracked at 2 p.m.), and once a bit closer in, still untracked at nearly 3 p.m.
We thereafter called it a day, opting to beat the traffic down canyon and save ourselves for another powder day tomorrow.
Storm total: 31" and still coming down. Pat, Tony Crocker and I rode up together. We were in line at the mouth of the canyon at 8:20, the road opened around 9:05 or 9:10 and we were at GMD by 9:35. Our first run was to Cheater's Thirds to Greeley Bowl, and the latter was truly heli-quality untracked. It was so good that we did a second Greeley Bowl to finish it off.
By then, the Collins line had grown to a size that rivaled the crapshow on Monday, so we moved to Wildcat upon learning that Comma Chute was open. Tony and Pat have now had their Comma Chute virginity deflowered. The upper part was absolutely beautiful, lightly tracked and deep snow. The chute itself was skied but loose sluff, precisely what you'd expect in such tight quarters.
We had a miserable experience getting back. The buses were done for the morning, and the Alta Shuttle driver blew past all of us even though she had only one passenger in her minibus. This will be the subject of an upcoming editorial -- this is a tourism business, and whether you're a local or a visitor you're still a tourist in a tourist economy. Alta cannot afford to have indifferent, or in this case even downright miserable employees representing the town or the ski area, and even though the employee in question works for Canyon Transport it reflects badly upon the town and the ski area as a whole. And Canyon Transport in this case is a contractor of the town. This driver already has a widely known reputation for a truly miserable attitude, and this behavior is absolutely inexcusable. All at her stop were forced to walk back to Alta from the Bypass Road, including a member of Alta Ski Patrol who was waiting with us.
Our next run was into my favorite secret spot. There were two visitors from Baltimore who were asking an awful lot of questions as we worked our way over there. Finally I asked them, "Do you want the run of your life?"
The both nodded their agreement.
"Well, then," I responded, "Follow us."
By this time the lines on Collins and Wildcat had evaporated, largely due to the opening of Supreme. Upon our arrival there, however, the line was the biggest that I've ever seen for that lift. We opted to lunch at Alf's instead to let the line dissipate a bit, a plan that worked quite well by the time we got back to Supreme. We lapped Catherine's Area twice, once all the way out to Last Chance (upon which Crocker whined incessantly about a "grunt to reward ratio" even though we skied untracked at 2 p.m.), and once a bit closer in, still untracked at nearly 3 p.m.
We thereafter called it a day, opting to beat the traffic down canyon and save ourselves for another powder day tomorrow.
for a very well executed morning. The Cheater Thirds, Greely and 2 condo/bus runs were epic, and well worth most of the nuisance value getting to and from, particularly on such a busy day. With those kinds of crowds you're not going to get quantity anyway, so might as well maximize quality off the beaten track. The day was 11,200, 6K of excellent powder, interestingly similar to my first day in Niseko Jan. 23: