Alta/Snowbird, Mar. 8-9, 2020

Tony Crocker

Administrator
Staff member
The modest storm predicted came Saturday night with 5 inches reported Sunday morning. After the widespread melt/freeze of the prior week, I thought it was best to start with Alta in search of low angle powder.

I met admin & company again, joined this time by kingslug, who drove over for the day from Park City, plus Telejon. It did not snow much during the day, mainly one burst from about 2-3PM. There was thick overcast and flat light, which had the virtue of keeping the sun off the snow.

Admin announced going to Greeley Bowl but headed out the highest gate of the High T. I Iost them in the flat light and assumed the high gate meant I should do the step-up to Thirds. View from top of Thirds:
IMG_5687.JPG


Our next sector for low angle powder was off the Summer Road. This area was modest in vertical but quite wide so we ran untracked three laps there. Kingslug had fallen off a dip in the High T so it took awhile for him to connect and join us for the third lap.

We had lunch at Albion Grill then rode Sugarloaf to Cecret Saddle. With Ballroom/Backside closed, admin suggested his favorite lower run into Snowbird. That was not as good as usual because there were probably only about 3 inches new that low, not enough to hide the well baked base underneath.

BobbyD, Amy and I continued to the Peruvian chair and the tunnel. Bobby figured the Baldy chair would have some low angle powder options.

Here we are on a traverse with short step-up at far skier’s right.
IMG_5689.JPG

There were some more options lower down which I utilized the next two days.

They returned to Alta while I skied to Iron Blosam via Upper Silver Fox. I skied 17,400 at Alta on Saturday, 11,800 at Alta and 5,600 at Snowbird Sunday. This weekend put me over the 1 million vertical foot mark of lifetime skiing at Alta. I have over 2.5 million at Snowbird.

On Monday Lonnie and his local Utah friend Craig were skiing Alta. I took the tram up and eventually joined them. The tram maze looked like I might make the next one but it wasn’t even close. Due to wind predictions, there were four big drums in each tram for ballast and only 80 passengers for each tram.

The Path to Paradise was somewhat of a junk snow as the light was flat and there were scattered mounds of avy debris. I was not tempted to stay on the traverse due to the light and thus skied groomed Powder Paradise to the Baldy lift. I did take a Baldy lap out to Patrol Gully, view from there:
IMG_5691.JPG


From the Mineral chair I skied upper Lupine Loop to the tunnel but found some decent intermediate powder skier’s left of the lift for the middle third of vertical. The lower third of vertical was roped off but I did get a few tracks in same area I had skied with Bobby and Amy before.

I entered Alta, skied to the Wildcat base only to find that Lonnie and Craig were on Supreme. I skied three runs over there with them, two of them through a chute under the lift to reach soft north facing snow lower down. Here are Lonnie and Craig at a scenic stop in that area.
IMG_5692.JPG


We had a short lunch at Alf’s where there was a sunny break in an otherwise cloudy day. From Alf’s here’s the view of still pristine Backside.
IMG_5693.JPG

Tseeb skied it Tuesday but by then it was already sun affected and heavy. Snowbird opened Bookends and Road to Provo Monday.

After lunch we skied Extrovert and Charteuse from Sugarloaf. I returned to Snowbird, trying Patrol Gully again, but it had been skied enough that I was hitting much more crusty subsurface than in the morning.

I skied to Iron Blosam via Road to Provo and Rasta trees. Totals were 11,100 vertical at Alta and 8,500 at Snowbird.
 
Back
Top