On this rare occasion 14 of our Iron Blosam group decided to ski Alta, meeting at 11AM at Watson’s. Some took the bus up there to buy day tickets while a few went up the tram and crossed over via Baldy/Sugarloaf Pass. I skied over a bit early to visit ski patrol and investigate some Alta snow data issues.
With a big and mixed group of 11 people the morning was mostly a cruiser tour. From top of Collins we skied Rollercoaster to Sugarloaf, next lap there moved to Supreme, where we took this group pic at the top.
After a group run on Rock N Roll, most took another groomer while Ed, Stephan and Bob volunteered to follow me into the White Squaw area. Not knowing the most direct approach I decided to err on the side of being too high rather than too low. This resulted in skiing 500 vertical of frozen moguls, across frozen traverse tracks and through former powder frozen into coral. We eventually reached the chute I wanted to ski under the lift.
The snow in there was good though I won’t claim it was worth the painful approach.
The whole group then skied down to Sunnyside so they could see that part of the mountain. I suggested that any future beginners that come to Iron Blosam might be better served on Albion/Sunnyside than being confined to Chickadee or thrown to the wolves on Big Emma. We went back up Sunnyside, where I took this overview pic of the Supreme liftline area.
Then we rode Sugarloaf and skied to lunch at Watson’s, where Liz joined us. We were also joined by Mark Meisner and Eddie, who had been skiing more challenging terrain in the morning.
After lunch I told the group we were going off the groomers, and so started with Ballroom, where everyone could find a comfortable run. A few of us pushed out to the Harold’s/Tombstone area.
Next time up Collins I started out the Backside traverse, but Mark and Eddie wanted to repeat a morning run back to Sugarloaf via Glory Gulch.
This is an area admin’s crew usually avoids due to the confined bumps, but at least the snow was ideally sun-softened.
We considered a Highboy but were not looking forward to a likely still firm High T. Furthermore it was almost 3PM and Ed Meisner, Bob and Stephan preferred to return to Snowbird via Mineral Basin. So it dawned upon me that Devil’s Castle would give us good north facing snow and get people back up Sugarloaf just in time. This time people agreed the snow quality was worth the grunt work of getting there.
Farther down there were the usual variable snow bumps before returning to Sugarloaf, with Devil’s Castle in the background.
The rest of the group skied through the gate into Mineral basin at 3:30 while I skied down to Alta patrol and picked up the true Alta/Collins monthly snowfall going back to 1980-81 inception. Liz showed up there just as I was done around 4PM. We rode Collins, skied a Main Street cruiser followed by the quite long Blackjack traverse back to Snowbird. We had been warned that higher runs into Snowbird were either closed or had bad snow conditions. My total vertical was 23,000.
With a big and mixed group of 11 people the morning was mostly a cruiser tour. From top of Collins we skied Rollercoaster to Sugarloaf, next lap there moved to Supreme, where we took this group pic at the top.
After a group run on Rock N Roll, most took another groomer while Ed, Stephan and Bob volunteered to follow me into the White Squaw area. Not knowing the most direct approach I decided to err on the side of being too high rather than too low. This resulted in skiing 500 vertical of frozen moguls, across frozen traverse tracks and through former powder frozen into coral. We eventually reached the chute I wanted to ski under the lift.
The snow in there was good though I won’t claim it was worth the painful approach.
The whole group then skied down to Sunnyside so they could see that part of the mountain. I suggested that any future beginners that come to Iron Blosam might be better served on Albion/Sunnyside than being confined to Chickadee or thrown to the wolves on Big Emma. We went back up Sunnyside, where I took this overview pic of the Supreme liftline area.
Then we rode Sugarloaf and skied to lunch at Watson’s, where Liz joined us. We were also joined by Mark Meisner and Eddie, who had been skiing more challenging terrain in the morning.
After lunch I told the group we were going off the groomers, and so started with Ballroom, where everyone could find a comfortable run. A few of us pushed out to the Harold’s/Tombstone area.
Next time up Collins I started out the Backside traverse, but Mark and Eddie wanted to repeat a morning run back to Sugarloaf via Glory Gulch.
This is an area admin’s crew usually avoids due to the confined bumps, but at least the snow was ideally sun-softened.
We considered a Highboy but were not looking forward to a likely still firm High T. Furthermore it was almost 3PM and Ed Meisner, Bob and Stephan preferred to return to Snowbird via Mineral Basin. So it dawned upon me that Devil’s Castle would give us good north facing snow and get people back up Sugarloaf just in time. This time people agreed the snow quality was worth the grunt work of getting there.
Farther down there were the usual variable snow bumps before returning to Sugarloaf, with Devil’s Castle in the background.
The rest of the group skied through the gate into Mineral basin at 3:30 while I skied down to Alta patrol and picked up the true Alta/Collins monthly snowfall going back to 1980-81 inception. Liz showed up there just as I was done around 4PM. We rode Collins, skied a Main Street cruiser followed by the quite long Blackjack traverse back to Snowbird. We had been warned that higher runs into Snowbird were either closed or had bad snow conditions. My total vertical was 23,000.