Alta, UT 3/25/2005 Just another powder day...

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Holy S**t! Part Deux

My lunch meeting wrapped up earlier than expected, and by 12:30 I was weaving through traffic in downtown SLC trying to get to the hill.

Renson has a favorite expression: "Hell on the highway, heaven on the hill." That phrase crossed my mind today about 1/3 of the way up canyon, as a UTA bus came down the hill around a corner and began to pirouette in front of me. The back end of the bus slammed into the embankment and the driver managed to regain control just before he was alongside me. :shock:

Flipping on the canyon information radio station, I learned that the Collins lift had a bearing failure and was down for maintenance. I thus headed straight for the Albion lot, found a spot atop the hill, and skied down to the Sunnyside chair in time to board the lift by 1:30.

Over 80 inches of snow has fallen at Alta thus far this week (more than 6.5 feet!), and it's still snowing. Once this system moves through, the next one is anticipated on Monday. A foot of that 80 inches has fallen in the past 24 hours, and it really came down all afternoon. Settled mid-mountain snow depth is up to 183 inches (that's over 15 feet, folks!) and season-to-date snowfall is up to 549 inches. To quote another favorite Renson-ism, "These are the best of times."

I finally located Marc C by radio after one divine run in the trees off Supreme. The problem was that he was at tower 5 of the Supreme chair, and I had skied down to Sugarloaf. No worries, we planned a meeting at the bottom of Supreme. Cecret Saddle gate was closed, so I dropped down through the sparse trees between Razor Back and Devil's Elbow in search of some semblance of visual definition, and met up with Marc C, Dale and his wife Pat at the bottom of Supreme.

We headed straight out to the Spiny Chutes, somewhere that I've spent precious little time. Lines that normally require mandatory air are now completely filled in. The "Diving Board" beneath the Supreme chair is now no more than 3 or 4 feet high. Holy crap, that run down Spiny was fun!

Another ride on Supreme and we watched helplessly as the patrol closed the Supreme Bowl gate at 3pm right in front of us. We skied down the right side of Challenger to the second gate, traversing over beneath the chair and crossing the top of Supreme Challenge to ski the rib that separates Supreme Challenge from the chair liftline. Spying a small downed evergreen sticking out of the snow, I had to make a quick decision as I threaded between the trees on either side: left, or right. I opted for right, but immediately realized that I should have chosen left as something beneath the snow grabbed my right ski and hurled me directly into the shroud of the evergreen to my right. I immediately tasted spruce, and some 30 seconds later I found myself spitting out two spruce needles. It took a good five minutes to climb back to my separated ski in the deep fluff, but the turns below there were among the second best of the day.

That absolute honor has to go to the next to last run, a quick shot through Eagle's Nest. It was so lightly tracked that the tracked stuff we skied was really the slough of the skiers who came before us. Venturing into the trees on the left yielded completely untracked lines and more face shots. Wow. Wow. Wowowowowow!!

For the last run of the day, I have never actually skied High Rustler, and there was no day like today to give it a shot. I caught a blind dip on High Traverse in the whiteout and actually fell off the traverse for the first time, spending a good 3 or 4 minutes trying to climb back up the mere 5 vertical feet back to the traverse line. High Rustler sure didn't feel like the advertised 42 degrees, and hugging the right side yielded yet more untracked lines and 3 face shots in a row. Hard to believe, but there was only 1 set of tracks coming out of Rustler 4 by 4:30 p.m.

Wow. Wow. Wowowowowow!!

Avi conditions are fairly high right now. There was a slide this afternoon on Kessler Peak near Big Cottonwood Canyon, and rescue crews are heading in two miles to gather the two who didn't ski out even as I type this. Shortly thereafter, another slide was reported by 3 skiers who triggered it in the Mt. Olympus area, but they're reportedly walking out on their own. Little Cottonwood Canyon road will close for control work at 6 am between gates B & C, encompassing the majority of the canyon up to Snowbird Entry 1, and it is expected to reopen around 8 am. To quote an overused line from Hill Street Blues, "Let's be careful out there, folks!"

I somehow managed to log 18,575 vertical feet between 1:30 pm and 4:30 pm. I'm still not convinced that that's physically possible. I didn't bring my camera along today, but to give you a taste of what 183" of settled snowpack looks like I took the following photos with my cell phone camera (I therefore apologize for the image quality and screwy colors) while stuck in traffic descending the Canyon.
 

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Holy sh!t. I knew once the pattern broke, abundant snow would fall but I never guessed all lleh would break loose. I'm seeing things like 10 feet of new snow in the Sierra...6.5 feet this week at Alta...Just got a call from a family friend in Durango, Colorado to say they've picked up 3-4 feet this week which is second largest cycle they've had this season to the 10 feet they recieved in 14 days around the Christmas holiday.

Keep the pictures coming, Guido.
 
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