Day 42: Skiin' my age.
A number of factors went into making today a great one at Alta. First of all, friends: Bob Dangerous, Skidog, the Tran family visiting from Vermont (Arnie, Kay and Jonathan), the Wilson family from here in town (Sam, Dean and Kelsey), Marc_C, Tirolerpeter, Larry and Laurie (two other friends of Bob's who are visiting), Tele Jon, Pat, and PattiMac and Courtney, both visiting from the east coast. Huge group, huh? Alas, I never got to ski with the latter four even though we kept bumping into them throughout the day. The rest of us spent the day skiing together in one giant pack. When you're in a group like that you feed off each other's energy, propelling yourself through greater and greater runs.
Another factor was the surprise snowstorm Friday that, while forecast to leave 8-12", actually dumped 23".
We were also blessed by terrain closures yesterday. Collins was down all day Friday for mechanical reasons, so the only way to ski upper Collins Gulch yesterday was to ride Sunnyside and Sugarloaf, then traverse all the way around on the Germ Return and get back to Sunnyside via the Transfer Tow. Ballroom/Baldy Shoulder and Devil's Castle didn't open yesterday at all for avi risk.
The LCC road closed at 6:30 am for avalanche control and Alta went into Interlodge at 7 am. Even that didn't screw things up for us, as the road was already open by the time I got to it at 8:15 and there was minimal traffic heading up, surely due to folks anticipating that it would take much longer.
The final factor was just plain good luck. As we stood atop Collins after today's first lift ride, trying to decide where to go, the rope drops on the Ballroom traverse. That sure made the decision an easy one!
The day therefore started out in the Graveyard. The clear and sunny early morning skies deteriorated into overcast with light snow in the span of 30 minutes this morning, and visibility was already shot to hell by the time we made our first turns. No matter, the new snow was perfectly even and bottomless in Graveyard, and you could've skied it blindfolded -- there was no need to see anything. I've never seen such a huge group emerge onto Main Street with massive ear-to-ear smiles like that!
We just kept nailing it all morning. We rode Wildcat to ski down through the Westward Ho gate and there was one -- count it, one -- track through the gate. We were some of the first out the Evergreen gate to ski the easternmost slopes of Devil's Castle. We continued out of Catherine's by hiking up to the lower slopes of Tuscarora where nary a soul had been.
It was so good, in fact, that by the time we hit that last line around 12:45 p.m. my 2GB camera card was full! I've got to start carrying a spare, but I never figured that I'd fill that one up. It was completely empty when I'd started the day. No more filming, now we'd just ski.
Even liftlines were short wherever we went. Wildcat was ski-on and Supreme never got any longer than about 3 minutes, yet the parking lot at Wildcat was full and folks were parked on the road. Where was everyone? Hiking out to Devil's Castle. As much as I love that terrain it just isn't worth enduring a conga line like that.
We grabbed a bite at Alf's before heading back to Collins Gulch via Sugarloaf. I wanted trees for visibility so I led some of the visitors in our group down through Fred's Trees along with the Wilsons while Bob D, Skidog and Tele Jon headed out to West Rustler. Regrouping at the base, those three headed off to Snowbird for a few runs after riding Wildcat with us, and the rest of us headed down Max's for a bus run.
We wrapped up the day at 3:30 with a great run down through Greeley Slot to North Rustler, save for Jonathan who opted for one more run to close out his weeklong visit to Utah. We slumped into the Goldminer's couches while we awaited Jonathan's return.
Wowsers. I'm shot, and I'm typing this bleary-eyed as today's video is transcoding to include below.
And tomorrow should only be better. The Cottonwood Canyons forecast for tonight is for another 6-10 inches, but it was positively pounding down here in the Salt Lake Valley this evening, leaving much more than it was supposed to. Light snowfall continues here at the house, and Skidog just text messaged me to advise that they've gotten 7" at his place in Sandy and it's still coming down.
Here's today's video -- I'm rather proud of this one:
<embed src="http://www.skimovies.com/videoplayer/mediaplayer.swf" width="640" height="500" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="&displayheight=480&file=http://www.skimovies.com/flv/Alta_2008-03-15.flv&height=500&width=640&image=http://www.skimovies.com/flv/Alta_2008-03-15_thumb.jpg">
A number of factors went into making today a great one at Alta. First of all, friends: Bob Dangerous, Skidog, the Tran family visiting from Vermont (Arnie, Kay and Jonathan), the Wilson family from here in town (Sam, Dean and Kelsey), Marc_C, Tirolerpeter, Larry and Laurie (two other friends of Bob's who are visiting), Tele Jon, Pat, and PattiMac and Courtney, both visiting from the east coast. Huge group, huh? Alas, I never got to ski with the latter four even though we kept bumping into them throughout the day. The rest of us spent the day skiing together in one giant pack. When you're in a group like that you feed off each other's energy, propelling yourself through greater and greater runs.
Another factor was the surprise snowstorm Friday that, while forecast to leave 8-12", actually dumped 23".
We were also blessed by terrain closures yesterday. Collins was down all day Friday for mechanical reasons, so the only way to ski upper Collins Gulch yesterday was to ride Sunnyside and Sugarloaf, then traverse all the way around on the Germ Return and get back to Sunnyside via the Transfer Tow. Ballroom/Baldy Shoulder and Devil's Castle didn't open yesterday at all for avi risk.
The LCC road closed at 6:30 am for avalanche control and Alta went into Interlodge at 7 am. Even that didn't screw things up for us, as the road was already open by the time I got to it at 8:15 and there was minimal traffic heading up, surely due to folks anticipating that it would take much longer.
The final factor was just plain good luck. As we stood atop Collins after today's first lift ride, trying to decide where to go, the rope drops on the Ballroom traverse. That sure made the decision an easy one!
The day therefore started out in the Graveyard. The clear and sunny early morning skies deteriorated into overcast with light snow in the span of 30 minutes this morning, and visibility was already shot to hell by the time we made our first turns. No matter, the new snow was perfectly even and bottomless in Graveyard, and you could've skied it blindfolded -- there was no need to see anything. I've never seen such a huge group emerge onto Main Street with massive ear-to-ear smiles like that!
We just kept nailing it all morning. We rode Wildcat to ski down through the Westward Ho gate and there was one -- count it, one -- track through the gate. We were some of the first out the Evergreen gate to ski the easternmost slopes of Devil's Castle. We continued out of Catherine's by hiking up to the lower slopes of Tuscarora where nary a soul had been.
It was so good, in fact, that by the time we hit that last line around 12:45 p.m. my 2GB camera card was full! I've got to start carrying a spare, but I never figured that I'd fill that one up. It was completely empty when I'd started the day. No more filming, now we'd just ski.
Even liftlines were short wherever we went. Wildcat was ski-on and Supreme never got any longer than about 3 minutes, yet the parking lot at Wildcat was full and folks were parked on the road. Where was everyone? Hiking out to Devil's Castle. As much as I love that terrain it just isn't worth enduring a conga line like that.
We grabbed a bite at Alf's before heading back to Collins Gulch via Sugarloaf. I wanted trees for visibility so I led some of the visitors in our group down through Fred's Trees along with the Wilsons while Bob D, Skidog and Tele Jon headed out to West Rustler. Regrouping at the base, those three headed off to Snowbird for a few runs after riding Wildcat with us, and the rest of us headed down Max's for a bus run.
We wrapped up the day at 3:30 with a great run down through Greeley Slot to North Rustler, save for Jonathan who opted for one more run to close out his weeklong visit to Utah. We slumped into the Goldminer's couches while we awaited Jonathan's return.
Wowsers. I'm shot, and I'm typing this bleary-eyed as today's video is transcoding to include below.
And tomorrow should only be better. The Cottonwood Canyons forecast for tonight is for another 6-10 inches, but it was positively pounding down here in the Salt Lake Valley this evening, leaving much more than it was supposed to. Light snowfall continues here at the house, and Skidog just text messaged me to advise that they've gotten 7" at his place in Sandy and it's still coming down.
Here's today's video -- I'm rather proud of this one:
<embed src="http://www.skimovies.com/videoplayer/mediaplayer.swf" width="640" height="500" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" flashvars="&displayheight=480&file=http://www.skimovies.com/flv/Alta_2008-03-15.flv&height=500&width=640&image=http://www.skimovies.com/flv/Alta_2008-03-15_thumb.jpg">
