ALTA, UT — The last ski day at Alta for the season. It was cold and snowy with crappy snow conditions. Not cool, but fun nonetheless.
(more soon)
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ALTA, UT — The last ski day at Alta for the season. It was cold and snowy with crappy snow conditions. Not cool, but fun nonetheless.
(more soon)
Rating:
ALTA, UT — Alta was nearly empty as I rode the Sunnyside lift up to the Sugarloaf lift. Alta had received a large storm in the middle of the week (when the lifts were closed), so only Friday's skiers had skied the new snow. The weather was variable, but it seemed there were still plenty of fresh tracks to be had. The condition of those fresh tracks, however, appeared to be questionable.
ALTA, UT — Given that I have a trip to Durango planned for next weekend, I anticipate that this ski day will be my last of the season at Alta (they close next weekend) and my last ski day with Brendan as fellow locals (he's moving back east this summer). I brought my camera along to document this event.
I figured that just he and I would be skiing today, but we ran into Sam and Brian in the parking lot. I hadn't skied with Sam since January. Sam's fun to ski with because he's really good, but he's very humble about that fact, and he's just an all-around good guy. I hadn't yet skied with Brian.
While we were riding up the Sugarloaf lift, ski patrol had bombed the east face of Mount Baldy near where I had climbed Mount Baldy the week before. The bomb triggered a slide about 10 yards wide that ran down almost to the cat track that takes skiers from the top of the Sugarloaf lift to the top of the Collins lift.
After a typical, quick, boring run down the groomers back down to the base of Sugarloaf, we jumped back on the lift and contemplated our options. The options we discussed were actually quite typical (Collins side, Devil's Castle, Sugarloaf again, etc.) until Mount Baldy came into view.
There was some activity going on near the site of the little avalanche. Ski patrol and a few other people were hiking Baldy. Sam was curious, and a discussion about my hike up Baldy to ski its main chute ensued.
When we unloaded from the lift, Sam shot over to the Mount Baldy gate to inquire with ski patrol if, in fact, it was open. Ski patrol informed us that it would be just a minute before the trail up Mount Baldy would open.
While we waited for them to drop the rope, we all decided to hike Mount Baldy, although it seemed that Sam wasn't sure what I had in mind. Instead, I think he just though we would hike to the traverse, and ski down the east face back down to the cat track.
We started our expedition by walking over rocks and compacted snow along the ridge until we reached the traverse. Unlike last weekend when I had walked the traverse, this time skis were required.
After about 15 minutes of annoying traversing, we reached the bootpacked trail that led up the east face to the ridge. I climbed quicker than my lungs would allow because I wanted to get some good pictures of everyone climbing up the steep face. The extra effort was well worth it because I think I got some really good photos.
The walk up the ridge was a breeze. When I got to the summit, I was extremely excited. I never thought I would ski Baldy's main chute even once. The fact that I would ski it a second time just struck me as extremely unlikely. I was also very excited to ski the chute better than I had last week.
After a quick breather on the summit (and the coolest spot any of us had ever taken a leak, I'm sure), we skied down from the summit to the top of the main chute, which is about 200 yards northeast of the summit.
The chute looked quite different from last week when it was nearly 60 at the base of Alta. Today it was sunny, but not nearly as warm. The chute was also full of 20+ inches of settled new snow from storms throughout the week.
After snapping some photos of the chute, I handed off the camera to Brendan and tried to mentally prepare myself to attack the chute...
(more coming soon)
ALTA, UT — I went skiing at Alta with friends of my old boss at Snowbird. They are all way better skiers than me, which is why it's so fun skiing with them. They never take the easy way down. Before our first run, they already started talking about skiing Baldy chute, which made me both excited and nervous all at once. After a few "warm-up" runs, we fueled up at the mid-mountain restaurant and hiked up Mount Baldy to ski its main chute, which is a 750 vertical foot, 40-degree steep, 30-foot wide chute dropping off the summit of Mount Baldy. I linked a few pictures below to illustrate the experience. The photos were taken by Steve (my old boss) with his cell phone during the trip.
ALTA, UT — Weird, sort-of blah overcast groomer day with a run down Gunsight to end the day.
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