Zand
Well-known member
Original plan was to be in Jackson by Friday but with the sudden forecast of 16-24" an audible was immediately called and I stayed back in Utah for one more day. Got to the bus lot at 8:25 but the canyon road was a total shitshow and didn't get to Alta until 10:15. My fault for not leaving earlier. So I missed first tracks, but 14" had fallen so far and it continued dumping pretty much all day.
Started off with some runs off Supreme, going further out each time. Not much left for untracked, but still a ton of deep powder. The base is so deep that all the rocky areas that I remembered from January were totally buried.
Took a few runs off Sugarloaf...unfortunately IMO that lift is rather uninteresting when all the stuff to either side is closed for avy control. But at the same time, what's open is expansive enough to find fresh tracks all day as long as you keep your speed into the runouts.
Went down for lunch at Goldminers around 12:30. The sun was teasing for a while, but shortly after I went back out it started dumping harder than it had all day and the wind started picking up as well.
Spent the rest of the day on the front side. A few runs down the face off High Traverse yielded a ton of deep deep powder although visibility was almost zero. Made the runs interesting as the ground would suddenly drop from underneath you unexpectedly, but that always meant take a quick turn and enjoy the face shot.
Took a few runs up Wildcat while I was over there...couldn't believe that right under the top of the lift there was still loads of untouched powder. Fun pitch to just bomb down with its undulations. Some good snow in the gulch near the bottom of the lift too.
Had a long ride to Jackson ahead of me and I was totally spent by 3:15 so I hopped on the bus and headed down. Road was still a shitshow and finally got to the car at 5:00. Final storm total was 22". Maybe someday I'll get to see what Alta is like without feet of powder because I'm 2 for 2 in that category. A few pictures to come later...my phone got quite wet and didn't want to work all day but it's fine now.
Started off with some runs off Supreme, going further out each time. Not much left for untracked, but still a ton of deep powder. The base is so deep that all the rocky areas that I remembered from January were totally buried.
Took a few runs off Sugarloaf...unfortunately IMO that lift is rather uninteresting when all the stuff to either side is closed for avy control. But at the same time, what's open is expansive enough to find fresh tracks all day as long as you keep your speed into the runouts.
Went down for lunch at Goldminers around 12:30. The sun was teasing for a while, but shortly after I went back out it started dumping harder than it had all day and the wind started picking up as well.
Spent the rest of the day on the front side. A few runs down the face off High Traverse yielded a ton of deep deep powder although visibility was almost zero. Made the runs interesting as the ground would suddenly drop from underneath you unexpectedly, but that always meant take a quick turn and enjoy the face shot.
Took a few runs up Wildcat while I was over there...couldn't believe that right under the top of the lift there was still loads of untouched powder. Fun pitch to just bomb down with its undulations. Some good snow in the gulch near the bottom of the lift too.
Had a long ride to Jackson ahead of me and I was totally spent by 3:15 so I hopped on the bus and headed down. Road was still a shitshow and finally got to the car at 5:00. Final storm total was 22". Maybe someday I'll get to see what Alta is like without feet of powder because I'm 2 for 2 in that category. A few pictures to come later...my phone got quite wet and didn't want to work all day but it's fine now.
