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Alta: May 2, 2014

thetrailboss

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Ski Resort: Alta, Utah

Date: May 2, 2014

Weather/Conditions: Sunny, high in the upper 50's; WS/Spring

Report:

One last day at Alta for me for this season as they close on Sunday. I was going to take the previous Friday off, but it did not work and the weather was questionable, so today was the day.

Thanks to a meeting in the morning I got a later start and got up to the mountain at about 10am. By then it was already a bit toasty up there.

First run was down High Main Street to Main Street and then down Collins Face. Though usually Alta's grooming and snow are great, today was an exception and the first time for Alta. The mountain ops team made a very easy mistake by grooming the runs too early...before the snow set up. The end result was groomed ice that took a while to soften. The first run was pretty rough need less to say.

I decided to try out Ballroom as folks were skiing it and it looked good. The snow was very soft and not yet sticky. It felt nice compared to the groomed ice. The Collins Face area, by now, was softening up. I intended to head out further on the Shoulder Traverse but I found that the gate was closed due to the warm sun sending snow off the rocks and cliffs above. So I pretty much repeated the last run and found it in decent shape.

Seeing that the snow on Collins side was not quite perfect, I headed over to Sugarloaf and Sunnyside. The groomed terrain up high was pretty good, but Sunnyside was already sticky and slow. Unfortunately today's weather went from cold to very hot almost instantly because of the strong sun, and the snow never really was corn. There were pockets of nice soft snow that sliced off, and some mashed potatoes, but it pretty much became Elmer's Glue and folks cleared out early.

That said, it was a nice day and I still skied a lot of ground because I could. I found that Sunspot was just starting to soften...but it felt like skiing on styrofoam because you either floated uneasily or broke through.

I'd heard that the High Traverse was not too bad, so I ventured up there and skied down East Greely setting down one of a handful of tracks. The snow was wet and slow but not too bad.

After a very sticky and slow Sunnyside run, I went back to Collins side and skied a nice line down Stone Crusher and the Lower Lone Pine. The snow was sticky, but the pitch gave you enough to break the stickiness.

After that I worked the groomers on Collins side that were OK, but had gone from ice to stick snow. Pitch was your friend.

Overall a nice day to be out despite the less than ideal snow conditions due to the warmth and sun.
 

thetrailboss

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jun 4, 2004
Messages
32,340
Points
113
Location
NEK by Birth
Ballroom:

ry%3D400


ry%3D400


View from Sunnyside:

ry%3D400


Sunspot:

ry%3D400


Styro-snow

ry%3D400


Dancing at the mid-station:

ry%3D400


ry%3D400


Wet snow sloughs:

ry%3D400


My tracks in East Greeley:

ry%3D400


More tracks in East Greeley:

ry%3D400


Yum

ry%3D400


My tracks in Sunspot (dead center)

ry%3D400
 
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