Alta 4/9/2017

[BobMc]

Day 44

I got up early this morning and called Marc Guido and made arrangements to meet him at Collins. He assured me with the lack of crowds I could sleep in a bit and easily score one of the first chairs with him. I slept a bit more and made it to the lot around 9:00, I geared up and joined Marc on one of the front rows to Collins.

Thankfully Alta had everything open right away, with the lack of crowds this allowed us to sample an array of the goods even after taking a mid morning respite to take in the brunch at the Rustler Lodge. Marc was right, the high end food and wine pairings made for a splendid diversion from the serious business of powder access. I really appreciated the white table cloths, a welcome change from the paltry offerings over at Snowbird.

After brunch Marc gave me a tour of the traverses at Alta, we had a good time sidestepping to the goods. Thankfully Alta sits at an aspect that allows snow preservation extraordinaire. No matter the season or sun quantity the snow at Alta remains soft and fluffy, it's amazing! After a day of plundering the many hidden stashes that only Alta locals can know we ended the day with nachos in the GMD with Connie and Onno.

Driving down the canyon it became apparent to me how much busier Snowbird was, the parking lots were struggling to exit, I blissfully drove by all the fools which clogged their lifts and slopes all day.

I seriously have no idea why anyone would ski Snowbird.

 

[Tony Crocker]

 

[Admin]

#-o

 

[tseeb]

I got up early this morning and called Marc Guido and made arrangements to meet him at Collins.

...Marc gave me a tour of the traverses at Alta, we had a good time sidestepping to the goods.

...we ended the day with nachos in the GMD with Connie and Onno.

You should know that Marc waits in GMD until after Collins opens then strolls to the lift after the short line quickly disappears for the day. Were you one of the guys dropped? We started with 8 or 9 and it was only telejon, Marc, my wife and I "with nachos in the GMD" where they gratefully allowed my wife and I to change from a 3 pm Sunday checkout to noon on Monday for a small fee. Note that AmyZ and Matt kept skiing and were not dropped.

A couple of pictures of Marc skiing what we found at end of one of those traverses. Sorry for the low resolution, but when I changed my camera to snow mode, I must have lowered the resolution. I also tried to get ahead of them for better pictures, but they always wanted to go first to make sure the snow was safe and that I did not get lost.

 

[Admin]

No, Bob Mc was next door. His post was in response to my snarky comment on Facebook: "Hey, Bob Mc, how was Mineral? Oh, wait..."

Bob is supposed to be doing the rear brakes on my truck this week. Now I'm left wondering if that's a bad idea. :lol:

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Admin gets Alpine Zoned.

 

[tseeb]

No, Bob Mc was next door.

I realized there was sarcasm involved in the original post and tried to add some in my reply. Thanks for another great tour of Alta.

I did make it to Snowbird on Monday, but it was not easy. I was going to show my wife and lady from EpicSki she was skiing with Sugarloaf Pass to Snowbird's Baldy lift, but the pass was roped all day and I heard they were having problems with the lift so we took some laps on Sugarloaf. Devil's Castle opened so I did that hike twice. The first time I dropped in early and had some good untracked next to a slide path. The second time I went out and up further and had three or four great steep untracked shots. The ladies took two laps on Sugarloaf during my first hike and almost finished three on my second.

A guy working at Watson Shelter recommended the Blackjack Traverse, which I tried solo and verified was way above the ladies ability. I rode Peruvian and went through tunnel and skied down and rode up Mineral Basin. I was disappointed that Bookends was roped off as the only good snow I could find was against the rope line where it was less S-facing. The ladies and a couple of other EpicSkiers met me at the pass and we all ducked rope and skied down Baldy where untracked was nearly unskiable. My wife and her skiing partner returned to Alta where they enjoyed skiing soft groomed black runs (Extravert, Collins Face and Schuss Gully). The two Epicskiers and I skied Regulator Johnson, then Hoops and found good snow at top, but snow getting back to chair from Hoops needed to be packed down more. I took a solo lap into Great Scott which was great at the top, but required crossing some mank to get to groomed.

A guy I talked to on tram said he thought going to tram on Sunday was a mistake as it and Peruvian were late loading and he would have been better off skiing the Gad side where he had dropped his kid than stuck at lifts that were not running. At the top of tram, I consider hiking Baldy and it probably would have been a good choice as Shoulder looked like it was skiing well and I could not find a good route to Mineral base, but thought my first time up there should be with somebody who had done it before. The tram announcement including that Baldy lift was running (I could tell it was running on diesel), but connection to Alta was closed (but not being enforced). I finished my three days in LCC with a nearly entire High Rustler (did not enter from very top as we did the previous day and I bailed to groomer just before bottom), then after riding Collins skied some of Ballroom for probably the 4th time that day, then ripped the groomer to base. I finished before 4 with nearly 28K according to my watch.