Days 65-66: Another sleeper.
Saturday was a bit of a non-starter for me. I went up for the first two hours; groomers were fun, but I don't go to ski the groomers. Off-piste was still a bit chunky and stiff, so at 11:30 I headed down canyon to get done some other stuff that needed my attention. In all fairness, though, I heard that things improved considerably once it started snowing in the afternoon.
Saturday night about 3" fell, topped by another 5" of thick, dense snow on Sunday. We had planned to tour on Sunday, skinning/skiing Mt. Tuscarora and Mt. Wolverine before returning via Grizzly Gulch, but the cloud ceiling had dropped to about 9,500 feet and I was not comfortable heading out when I can't see any potential wind-loading above me. One first run out Backside and I was returning my skins and pack to the truck.
That run, however, was surprisingly good. The base never froze completely solid overnight, and the thick new snow was enough to fill in the tracks. And speaking of tracks, there was precisely one customer's and one patroller's heading out Backside when we went through the gate.
That happened again later that morning when we went through Keyhole:
One set of tracks -- ski patrol's -- head into Keyhole at 11:35 a.m.!
I was shocked at how empty Alta was. At 10:45 a.m. we watched a stream of six chairs head up Collins -- four were empty, and two were carrying a single rider each.
After heading through Keyhole, Bobby Danger, AmyZ and I found rdwore and Paulie at Snowbird and we spent the remainder of Snowbird's day tooling around with them. Yes, it was busier over there -- Gadzoom, for example, actually had a liftline -- but there were still plenty of ways to sniff out untracked.
Bobby showed me a mine tunnel at Snowbird that I never knew existed, which provided a perfect respite from increasing winds. (And no, it's not where the GPS data in the EXIF tag indicates that it is.)
I was shocked to learn that yesterday was the last day for the Rendezvous cafeteria at Snowbird. I understand cutting back as the season winds down, but it was just the first weekend in April and the restaurant was hardly empty. In the coming weeks that restaurant's closure will be a huge inconvenience to Snowbird's customers, who will now have only the Forklift (sit-down), the pizza counter and the General Grit's convenience store to choose from for lunch at Snowbird Center. Then again, I'd be even more pissed had I shelled out $1700 for a Jackson Hole season pass, for yesterday was their last day of operation, period.
Enough bitching, for the snow kept on coming, the skiing kept on getting better. Winds picked up from the northwest but they were tolerable. It was so good that we just kept repeating one certain run until Snowbird shut down at 4 p.m. It was so good that after taking the UTA back to Alta we squeezed in one last run on Collins before Alta closed at 4:30, and that run down Greeley Slot/Greeley Hill/North Greeley was absolutely the highlight of the day. By that point there was barely anyone left at Alta and we laid in virgin tracks all the way to the Transfer Tow. \
/
Saturday was a bit of a non-starter for me. I went up for the first two hours; groomers were fun, but I don't go to ski the groomers. Off-piste was still a bit chunky and stiff, so at 11:30 I headed down canyon to get done some other stuff that needed my attention. In all fairness, though, I heard that things improved considerably once it started snowing in the afternoon.
Saturday night about 3" fell, topped by another 5" of thick, dense snow on Sunday. We had planned to tour on Sunday, skinning/skiing Mt. Tuscarora and Mt. Wolverine before returning via Grizzly Gulch, but the cloud ceiling had dropped to about 9,500 feet and I was not comfortable heading out when I can't see any potential wind-loading above me. One first run out Backside and I was returning my skins and pack to the truck.
That run, however, was surprisingly good. The base never froze completely solid overnight, and the thick new snow was enough to fill in the tracks. And speaking of tracks, there was precisely one customer's and one patroller's heading out Backside when we went through the gate.
That happened again later that morning when we went through Keyhole:
One set of tracks -- ski patrol's -- head into Keyhole at 11:35 a.m.!
I was shocked at how empty Alta was. At 10:45 a.m. we watched a stream of six chairs head up Collins -- four were empty, and two were carrying a single rider each.
After heading through Keyhole, Bobby Danger, AmyZ and I found rdwore and Paulie at Snowbird and we spent the remainder of Snowbird's day tooling around with them. Yes, it was busier over there -- Gadzoom, for example, actually had a liftline -- but there were still plenty of ways to sniff out untracked.
Bobby showed me a mine tunnel at Snowbird that I never knew existed, which provided a perfect respite from increasing winds. (And no, it's not where the GPS data in the EXIF tag indicates that it is.)
I was shocked to learn that yesterday was the last day for the Rendezvous cafeteria at Snowbird. I understand cutting back as the season winds down, but it was just the first weekend in April and the restaurant was hardly empty. In the coming weeks that restaurant's closure will be a huge inconvenience to Snowbird's customers, who will now have only the Forklift (sit-down), the pizza counter and the General Grit's convenience store to choose from for lunch at Snowbird Center. Then again, I'd be even more pissed had I shelled out $1700 for a Jackson Hole season pass, for yesterday was their last day of operation, period.
Enough bitching, for the snow kept on coming, the skiing kept on getting better. Winds picked up from the northwest but they were tolerable. It was so good that we just kept repeating one certain run until Snowbird shut down at 4 p.m. It was so good that after taking the UTA back to Alta we squeezed in one last run on Collins before Alta closed at 4:30, and that run down Greeley Slot/Greeley Hill/North Greeley was absolutely the highlight of the day. By that point there was barely anyone left at Alta and we laid in virgin tracks all the way to the Transfer Tow. \
/
