Day 43: A true Alta powder day.
With storm totals of around a foot and a half (thus far) and heavy snow in the forecast (on a Saturday, no less) a capacity crowd was to be expected. And that's what we got. As I traveled south on Wasatch Blvd. the line to make a left turn to head up Big Cottonwood Canyon was backed up halfway to the sand pit. I got up LCC in normal time, but officials actually closed the canyons to uphill traffic mid-morning as all resorts had reached capacity. And unlike some others who tried to outsmart the system, we actually got to ski on Saturday.
It absolutely puked all day, often hitting rates of 2-3 inches per hour.
I can't go through everything run by run, for it's all pretty much a white blur. Somewhere late morning Bobby Danger proudly proclaimed it the best day of the season so far. (Yes, Evren, despite your snide comment that was also Bobby's opinion, and if you could access rdwore's Facebook you'd see that he stated the same, too. So sorry if you're just pissed that you didn't get to ski yesterday.
)
They closed the road at 2:30 p.m. for avalanche control, with a scheduled reopening at 3:30. I had an errand that needed to be run by 5:30 so I took off my boots at 3 p.m. and headed out to clean off the truck and stage myself in position. I was the first one out the Wildcat lot once the road reopened shortly after 3:30, and had a relatively painless drive down the canyon.
Storm totals are now around two feet and there's a final wave moving in today. We're going to try to outsmart the system today ourselves; we'll see how we make out.
With storm totals of around a foot and a half (thus far) and heavy snow in the forecast (on a Saturday, no less) a capacity crowd was to be expected. And that's what we got. As I traveled south on Wasatch Blvd. the line to make a left turn to head up Big Cottonwood Canyon was backed up halfway to the sand pit. I got up LCC in normal time, but officials actually closed the canyons to uphill traffic mid-morning as all resorts had reached capacity. And unlike some others who tried to outsmart the system, we actually got to ski on Saturday.
It absolutely puked all day, often hitting rates of 2-3 inches per hour.
I can't go through everything run by run, for it's all pretty much a white blur. Somewhere late morning Bobby Danger proudly proclaimed it the best day of the season so far. (Yes, Evren, despite your snide comment that was also Bobby's opinion, and if you could access rdwore's Facebook you'd see that he stated the same, too. So sorry if you're just pissed that you didn't get to ski yesterday.
)They closed the road at 2:30 p.m. for avalanche control, with a scheduled reopening at 3:30. I had an errand that needed to be run by 5:30 so I took off my boots at 3 p.m. and headed out to clean off the truck and stage myself in position. I was the first one out the Wildcat lot once the road reopened shortly after 3:30, and had a relatively painless drive down the canyon.
Storm totals are now around two feet and there's a final wave moving in today. We're going to try to outsmart the system today ourselves; we'll see how we make out.
