I pulled into Alta around 9:30am on Friday the 23rd. I took my time leaving yesterday morning. And the drive was slow as she goes. I-40 from Heber to Park City wasn’t too bad. Parley’s Summit wasn’t so bad, either. But when I hit I-215 in the Salt Lake Valley it slowed down big time. It was NUKING. Early morning commuter traffic was at a crawl so I jumped off on Wasatch Blvd and made my way slowly but surely to Big Cottonwood Canyon. Then, it was bumper to bumper going into Little Cottonwood from about Bengal Blvd on. There were Salt Lake County Sheriffs at the bottom of the canyon turning back anyone who didn’t have 4 wheel drive…just like they should be.
Now for the powder snow skiing report: Took a few laps off Highboy alone and then ran into Matt Tripp from the Alta Peruvian Lodge Bar. He’s running the show over there these past few years. He took over the bar manager job from me. He’s much on the same progression as I was in terms of my bar career in LCC. After a few years of long nights in that bar after long ski days, it gets hard. At any rate, we pretty much destroyed it for three straight hours on the hill. We couldn’t be faded. When I started skiing at 10am there were 8 or 9 inches new. When I left at 3pm we were closing in on two feet. Yep. YEP. Can’t say how bad I needed that storm ride. I was worked at the end of the day with wind burned face, but giddy like a 12 year old. I often say that a storm ride pow day in Alta is the only time I can act and feel like a kid for hours on end! Check out the Alta Pic of the Day for Friday, Feb 23rd!
Side Note: One cool thing was that Tripp said he would help me compile a list of local ski run names for Alta. His gang is a lot like mine. We have our own names for just about every area we ski in the boundaries (and beyond). Soon I plan to compile the ‘Alta local skier’s glossary of ski runs’ here on my rant platform, the SkiBumPoet blog. Keep an eye out for that…
Good ‘Ole Alta Peruvian Lodge Bar & Hippie Festival
