Days 40-41: The best birthday present ev-er!
That's what I call a 15-inch storm with free refills.
On Friday night we learned that LCC Road would close at 6 a.m. Saturday for avalanche control, with an estimated reopening at 8:30. Friend Arnie and I exchanged messages and decided that it would be best to beat the road closure and deliberately interlodge ourselves at GMD, thus we were sitting in the café at 6:05 a.m. as bombs fell all around us (and everyone else likewise interlodged sang "Happy Birthday," embarrassing the living crap out of me -- thanks, guys! I'm blaming Kay.).
GMD at 6:15 a.m.
Still interlodged at 8 a.m.
This turned out to be the right decision. Not only did we get in two laps before the first folks made it up the road (we were fourth chair on Wildcat without even trying), but from what I heard the traffic was a disaster. My friend Jon (not Telejon) left his house just south of the mouth of LCC at 8 a.m. and didn't start skiing until 10:30. Despite the traffic, Alta never felt busy all day. All lifts were ski-on. Did everyone end up at Snowbird?
We started the day with the 6" of dense, creamy snow that fell overnight, topped by the fluffy snow from the cold side of the storm that fell throughout the day. We scored absolute first tracks through the gate of my favorite little secret spot (and no one behind us) -- good enough that we went back for seconds before calling it a day at 3:15 -- which was about 15 minutes too late to avoid the downhill traffic exiting Snowbird.
Heavy snowfall during the day in Wildcat (photo: Tom)
Waiting for the bus: Admin (in teal), Kay (in blue) and Arnie (in tan/red). Yeah, they sang "Happy Birthday" here, too. (photo: Tom)
Of course, on a storm day none of the gated terrain opened on Saturday, save for Supreme Bowl, so we got a whole new round of untracked today in a total of 15" of new snow that was pure fairy-dust fluff. First tracks down Graveyard was absolutely divine, as was Susie's Trees. Albion Gully, though, was completely untracked and all-time.
Skidog
AmyZ
Bobby Danger
Unlike Saturday, today was as busy as I've ever seen it at Alta this season. Wildcat was ski-on but we waited as long as 10 minutes on Supreme and Collins was usually around 3 minutes. Then again, we could've been at Vail today:
Location: Vail, Colo.; Date: Jan. 31, 2016; photo: Brian Metzler/Instagram
That's what I call a 15-inch storm with free refills.
On Friday night we learned that LCC Road would close at 6 a.m. Saturday for avalanche control, with an estimated reopening at 8:30. Friend Arnie and I exchanged messages and decided that it would be best to beat the road closure and deliberately interlodge ourselves at GMD, thus we were sitting in the café at 6:05 a.m. as bombs fell all around us (and everyone else likewise interlodged sang "Happy Birthday," embarrassing the living crap out of me -- thanks, guys! I'm blaming Kay.).
GMD at 6:15 a.m.
Still interlodged at 8 a.m.
This turned out to be the right decision. Not only did we get in two laps before the first folks made it up the road (we were fourth chair on Wildcat without even trying), but from what I heard the traffic was a disaster. My friend Jon (not Telejon) left his house just south of the mouth of LCC at 8 a.m. and didn't start skiing until 10:30. Despite the traffic, Alta never felt busy all day. All lifts were ski-on. Did everyone end up at Snowbird?
We started the day with the 6" of dense, creamy snow that fell overnight, topped by the fluffy snow from the cold side of the storm that fell throughout the day. We scored absolute first tracks through the gate of my favorite little secret spot (and no one behind us) -- good enough that we went back for seconds before calling it a day at 3:15 -- which was about 15 minutes too late to avoid the downhill traffic exiting Snowbird.
Heavy snowfall during the day in Wildcat (photo: Tom)
Waiting for the bus: Admin (in teal), Kay (in blue) and Arnie (in tan/red). Yeah, they sang "Happy Birthday" here, too. (photo: Tom)
Of course, on a storm day none of the gated terrain opened on Saturday, save for Supreme Bowl, so we got a whole new round of untracked today in a total of 15" of new snow that was pure fairy-dust fluff. First tracks down Graveyard was absolutely divine, as was Susie's Trees. Albion Gully, though, was completely untracked and all-time.
Skidog
AmyZ
Bobby Danger
Unlike Saturday, today was as busy as I've ever seen it at Alta this season. Wildcat was ski-on but we waited as long as 10 minutes on Supreme and Collins was usually around 3 minutes. Then again, we could've been at Vail today:
Location: Vail, Colo.; Date: Jan. 31, 2016; photo: Brian Metzler/Instagram