Alta, UT 11/22/2014

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Day 2: The storm ramps up.

It started snowing just as Bobby Danger, AmyZ and I headed out the door of GMD to load first chair. It wasn't long, however, before it looked like this:

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It stacked up a few inches of dense snow and graupel rather quickly, and even that small amount dramatically improved snow surfaces over yesterday's. We explored a bit more today, exploiting weaknesses in ASP's rope lines wherever possible. We were rewarded with some creamy goodness.

TheOtherAmy and Telejon joined us after lunch. I was sore today, even though I skied only three hours yesterday. I nevertheless made it to 2:30 today, hoping that the snowfall would intensify.

But what fell today was just warm air advection snow well ahead of the cold front. We hit a lull in the storm after lunch, and even though I could see the wall of moisture riding out ahead of the cold front on our doorstep on radar Bobby and I both split. I figured that it was arriving too late to matter much for what remained in the ski day for Saturday, and I'd rather reap the cold front's overnight rewards on Sunday.

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Sure enough, precipitation came down in spades as I drove down the canyon. At that point, the rain/snow line was right around the base of Snowbird at around 7800 feet or so of elevation.

There's been a steady rain here in Cottonwood Heights for the remainder of the afternoon, but as I type this the cold front has still not even reached the northwestern corner of Utah. Two more inches have fallen since closing (total now 5") and that will hopefully stack up to around a foot overnight. We're supposed to have another lull in the action during the day tomorrow, but the hope is that the lake effect machine will turn on with the cold, unstable northwest flow across the Great Salt Lake. The forecast is still for 1-2 feet, with higher amounts possible in the upper Cottonwood Canyons.
 
Admin":120a9rl4 said:
There's been a steady rain here in Cottonwood Heights for the remainder of the afternoon, but as I type this the cold front has still not even reached the northwestern corner of Utah.

Never mind, the dog just came in from outdoors covered in snow. It has now changed over here in Cottonwood Heights at 4900 feet. We already have a dusting on the ground and it is accumulating quickly.
 
admin":35p9yirz said:
15" of new so far and I can't get to it!
I can't say I'm surprised. It seemed likely that skiing would be very limited due to control work, though I would not have guessed completely closed.
 
As long as they open for the afternoon, and I'm guessing that they will, this is fine with me. Better to get it all out of the way before you start loading the lift. I don't expect it to be very limited at that point. Snowbird, however is still just Bassackwards / Big Emma and they just closed temporarily to bomb Restaurant Row.
 
Admin":o7srg27q said:
Nope, I was wrong, they are staying closed until tomorrow.
They know more snow is coming: One of the rare instances where the pundit from 700 miles away was closer in his evaluation. :lol:
 
as admin indicated there were some lulls in the snow but not many which were few and far between - and in between lulls it was bliss !!!
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alta allowed travel into albion basin , many many fantastic runs out there .View attachment 2 i only skied a pair of runs then the mtn. closed , but the line there was !!!!!
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collins base area when i arrived .
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20" still predicted to come , this storm has overachieved so far .
 

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I saw you go through the singles line twice, it looked like you got on one of the chairs just before they stopped loading. It was a long cold two hours waiting for the chair to start back up. The wait was worth it though, the Wilbere area had a kinda soft closure, ski at your own risk.

We got a few laps on Wilbere shoulder to Cat cut off before the crowds figured it out. The red snake was in full effect, I saw a number of drivers that wil probably be calling Discount Tire tomorrow.
 
without question wilbere was a soft closure . skied both the bottom end of those two runs just slightly east of the chair . FANTASTIC--- nice dense snow . if the snow that had fallen would have been of some lighter density the bottom would have come into play in a drastic way, otherwise i hit nothing . bliss
 
Bobby Danger":2x9nlsjj said:
FANTASTIC--- nice dense snow . if the snow that had fallen would have been of some lighter density the bottom would have come into play in a drastic way, otherwise i hit nothing . bliss
This is what can make early season skiing in the Sierra great, like 2 years ago and 4 years ago. Unfortunately this November has been more like last year and 3 years ago. :evil:
 
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