Alta, UT 4/16-17/2005 Closing weekend

[Admin]

Wow! What a weekend. This was Alta's final weekend of skiing, and I'm not sure that I'm ready for it to end.

It was somewhat depressing watching the patrol pulling rope lines, signs, etc. all weekend long. That was balanced, however, by bright sunshine and blue skies, deep snow, fresh corn to harvest, and one incredible vibe across the mountain. The forecast for both days was for temps to reach into the 70s in the Salt Lake Valley, so you could probably knock 10-15 degrees off of that up in the canyon.

I'll just give you the highlights:

• Hiking to and dropping through High Notch for my first time ever onto copious fields of corn above the backside traverse.
• Lapping a deserted Wildcat chair for the best snow on Sunday morning while hordes of lemmings queued up at Collins for the rock-hard skating rink at the top of Main Street.
• Skiing a deep enough snowpack in the middle of April that the only rocks we saw were those that fell off of cliffs overhead and landed atop the snow.
• Getting one heck of a tan.
• Having lunch on the sundeck at Alf's Saturday, wearing just a T-shirt and ski pants and actually being too warm.
• Tailgating both Saturday and Sunday with Marc_C in the parking lot.
• Seeing the miracle of a groomed High Traverse out as far as Sunspot, as well as Sunspot itself, too.
• Checking out some of the outrageous costumes worn by locals on Sunday.
• The end-of-season blowout atop High Rustler after the lifts shut down on Sunday, that was positively mind-numbing in both its size and the craziness.

Some photos are below.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I've heard tales of that party atop High Rustler. When do people actually start skiing down? And what kind of shape are they in when they do?

Nice to hear that the corn was set up for you. With Alta's varied exposures it was probably best that it did not snow last week.

 

[Admin]

I've heard tales of that party atop High Rustler. When do people actually start skiing down? And what kind of shape are they in when they do?

It was about 7:30 pm for me, and I plead the 5th with regard to that last question. I wasn't the first, but I sure wasn't the last by a long shot! I'd guess that at least 90% of the party goers were still there when I left. Every now and then the entire crowd would start cheering, which from what I understand meant that someone had begun their descent sans clothing. I was never in a position in the crowd to actually witness this, however.

 

[Marc_C]

I've heard tales of that party atop High Rustler. When do people actually start skiing down? And what kind of shape are they in when they do?

Basically, at all different times. This year the T was closed until sometime after 1:00 since it was hideously and dangerously firm before then. Thus, folks didn't start collecting on the knoll till fairly late. Other years the early arrivals were in place at noon! Some folks don't even arrive in the parking lot till 4pm. So there seems to be a constant trickle of people coming down, and not everyone opts for descending High Rustler. I left about 6:30 - I wanted to go down with reasonable light and, frankly, didn't want to be on the run when some of the other, more "party affected" people, made their way down. As it was, I noticed some pretty ragged skiing, including one guy doing high speed GS turns on the edge of control - I was surprised he managed to stick one particular air.

There were lots of curious sights, including a lone ski sticking straight up out in the middle of Greeley Bowl some dozen or so turns below the traverse.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention the person who blew a turn about 1/3 of the way down and slid/bounced over the bumps for the next 1/3 of the run or about 400 vert. feet. We watched this from the parking lot around 3:30p. The suspicion is that the person continued with the second half of his/her fall just 'cause it was fun! Also, by the time I left, there were lots of people having enough difficulty walking about on the knoll - not quite sure how they were going to ski.

As you can see in the photo, at least one person had the good sense to bring along his walker! :lol:

 

[Admin]

At Tony's urging, I'm posting a few more party-related pix:

 

[Admin]

Two more:

 

[Jonny D]

There's only one way to describe that scene:

EPIC

 

[NHpowderhound]

My "to do" list just got longer by one.
((*
*))NHPH