Day 16: The return of the red snake.
When I hit a line of cars just trying to exit I-215 at 6200 S at 8:15 this morning, I knew what was coming.
Holy crowd, Batman! Skiing what has felt like a semi-private resort over the past few weeks has admittedly spoiled us, but the five inches of additional snow that fell overnight atop yesterday's six inches really drew the rats out of the woodwork today. It felt like Christmas week. The Wildcat lot filled early and cars were parked up the driveway and all along Little Cottonwood Canyon road. I doubt there was a vacant space anywhere within the town of Alta by 11 a.m.
And the liftlines matched. The liftline for Collins was beyond the maze and about 15 minutes long early on. We therefore started on Wildcat, but with the frigid temperatures (0.1 dF at 8 a.m. atop Collins) and the fact that the old girl hasn't carried a full load all season they were only loading 50% of the chairs, so it took an inordinately long time to get through the short line. Word apparently got out about how good yesterday's storm day was, and many locals figured that with five additional inches today could only be better.
And they were right. I could've gone straight home after those first five turns in Punch Bowl and I would've been perfectly happy with that. But there was lots more untracked snow to plunder.
And then something peculiar happened: the Collins liftline completely evaporated at around 10:45 a.m. And I mean evaporated, as in ski-on without any line. Certainly some folks left early, figuring that the best snow was done for the day, but they were still parking folks out in the hinterlands. I'm also sure that with the thin crowds over recent weeks many folks simply aren't in ski shape yet. Because of the frigid cold I'd bet that there were plenty of skiers spending time indoors between runs, but we never went in to find out. Regardless of the reason, this was a sea-change that happened within the span of 20 minutes.
On a stellar untracked run out to Greeley we looked off to the southeast and in the distance we saw at least part of the reason: Supreme. Many who skied yesterday were raving about how good Supreme was, and apparently many people listened today. Good, let them stay there and we'd have Collins to ourselves.
And we did for the rest of the day. We were halfway up the chair when we noticed that they opened Ballroom and the Baldy Traverse. While a conga line formed across the boney knucklehead to reach the Shoulder proper, we took an early line for untracked.
Next on the agenda was Backside. They opened the High Notch gate first, which they often do to give those willing to hike the first crack at it. I understand and fully respect that. I was in no shape to hike today, and Bobby Danger wasn't too inclined to hike, either, so after a bit we waited for the Instructor's Traverse gate to open. And waited. And waited. They usually open that gate 15-20 minutes after they open High Notch, but it had been open for 30 minutes and hardly anyone else was heading up. Patrollers came and went from the patrol shack at Germania Pass and completely ignored us standing there.
So after about 10 minutes we gave up and headed back to Baldy Shoulder. We joked that they probably opened the gate as soon as they watched us leave, but we got right back on Collins at the Angle Station and headed back to Germania Pass ready to go. To our surprise, it was still closed.
We had just resigned ourselves to hiking High Notch when a patroller emerged from the shack to advise that they would open the gate momentarily. We got in line, with Telejon second and me third. We were more than happy to let someone else slide into slot #1.
Backside was worth the wait, and then some. It never opened yesterday so we had the full storm total to work with. The snow had enough substance to it that you could literally rebound against it to shoot into the next turn. Untracked all the way to Sunnyside.
Figuring that places like GMD, Watson's and especially Alf's would be a total crap show with the crowd today, we went to Rustler Lodge for a sit-down lunch away from the crowds, only to find that they don't start serving lunch until Tuesday. A quick phone call to Alta Lodge, however, confirmed that they were serving and there were only three other tables occupied in the dining room as we sat down to eat while snow began to fall again in earnest.
It was while sitting there, however, that I began to fade. Another lap into Backside after lunch convinced me that after yesterday's pound-fest my legs were through, and I called it quits at 2 p.m. AmyZ and Bobby Danger headed down to Snowbird for a few runs. Telejon was going to lap Wildcat a couple more times before going home. I was in the car and heading down the canyon by 2:15. 4x4/chain restrictions were still posted and the road had a fresh coating of snow.
Right by Snowbird Entry 2, however, traffic ground to a halt. From there to the mouth of the canyon speeds ranged from 0 to 10 mph, and it took me a full hour and two minutes to exit the canyon. The "red snake" is back.
When I hit a line of cars just trying to exit I-215 at 6200 S at 8:15 this morning, I knew what was coming.
Holy crowd, Batman! Skiing what has felt like a semi-private resort over the past few weeks has admittedly spoiled us, but the five inches of additional snow that fell overnight atop yesterday's six inches really drew the rats out of the woodwork today. It felt like Christmas week. The Wildcat lot filled early and cars were parked up the driveway and all along Little Cottonwood Canyon road. I doubt there was a vacant space anywhere within the town of Alta by 11 a.m.
And the liftlines matched. The liftline for Collins was beyond the maze and about 15 minutes long early on. We therefore started on Wildcat, but with the frigid temperatures (0.1 dF at 8 a.m. atop Collins) and the fact that the old girl hasn't carried a full load all season they were only loading 50% of the chairs, so it took an inordinately long time to get through the short line. Word apparently got out about how good yesterday's storm day was, and many locals figured that with five additional inches today could only be better.
And they were right. I could've gone straight home after those first five turns in Punch Bowl and I would've been perfectly happy with that. But there was lots more untracked snow to plunder.
And then something peculiar happened: the Collins liftline completely evaporated at around 10:45 a.m. And I mean evaporated, as in ski-on without any line. Certainly some folks left early, figuring that the best snow was done for the day, but they were still parking folks out in the hinterlands. I'm also sure that with the thin crowds over recent weeks many folks simply aren't in ski shape yet. Because of the frigid cold I'd bet that there were plenty of skiers spending time indoors between runs, but we never went in to find out. Regardless of the reason, this was a sea-change that happened within the span of 20 minutes.
On a stellar untracked run out to Greeley we looked off to the southeast and in the distance we saw at least part of the reason: Supreme. Many who skied yesterday were raving about how good Supreme was, and apparently many people listened today. Good, let them stay there and we'd have Collins to ourselves.
And we did for the rest of the day. We were halfway up the chair when we noticed that they opened Ballroom and the Baldy Traverse. While a conga line formed across the boney knucklehead to reach the Shoulder proper, we took an early line for untracked.
Next on the agenda was Backside. They opened the High Notch gate first, which they often do to give those willing to hike the first crack at it. I understand and fully respect that. I was in no shape to hike today, and Bobby Danger wasn't too inclined to hike, either, so after a bit we waited for the Instructor's Traverse gate to open. And waited. And waited. They usually open that gate 15-20 minutes after they open High Notch, but it had been open for 30 minutes and hardly anyone else was heading up. Patrollers came and went from the patrol shack at Germania Pass and completely ignored us standing there.
So after about 10 minutes we gave up and headed back to Baldy Shoulder. We joked that they probably opened the gate as soon as they watched us leave, but we got right back on Collins at the Angle Station and headed back to Germania Pass ready to go. To our surprise, it was still closed.
We had just resigned ourselves to hiking High Notch when a patroller emerged from the shack to advise that they would open the gate momentarily. We got in line, with Telejon second and me third. We were more than happy to let someone else slide into slot #1.
Backside was worth the wait, and then some. It never opened yesterday so we had the full storm total to work with. The snow had enough substance to it that you could literally rebound against it to shoot into the next turn. Untracked all the way to Sunnyside.
Figuring that places like GMD, Watson's and especially Alf's would be a total crap show with the crowd today, we went to Rustler Lodge for a sit-down lunch away from the crowds, only to find that they don't start serving lunch until Tuesday. A quick phone call to Alta Lodge, however, confirmed that they were serving and there were only three other tables occupied in the dining room as we sat down to eat while snow began to fall again in earnest.
It was while sitting there, however, that I began to fade. Another lap into Backside after lunch convinced me that after yesterday's pound-fest my legs were through, and I called it quits at 2 p.m. AmyZ and Bobby Danger headed down to Snowbird for a few runs. Telejon was going to lap Wildcat a couple more times before going home. I was in the car and heading down the canyon by 2:15. 4x4/chain restrictions were still posted and the road had a fresh coating of snow.
Right by Snowbird Entry 2, however, traffic ground to a halt. From there to the mouth of the canyon speeds ranged from 0 to 10 mph, and it took me a full hour and two minutes to exit the canyon. The "red snake" is back.
