Got into Alta Tuesday night at 10:00 pm and got my stuff moved in. I left Atlanta on Monday morning at about 10:30 after reviewing safety precautions for the long drive. Made it to Rock Port, MO that night at about midnight (950 miles) and crashed in el cheapo hotel. Next day I put in about 1,050 miles, about 875 of them being on I-80. Speed Limit is 75 almost the entire length of 80, so I was cruising at 85 most of the way. I got pulled over once in Nebraska while passing some big rigs and I was pulled over again in wyoming between cheyenne and Laramie. Both state troopers were super cool and mostly asking about the perverse camber skis (BG's) and where I was headed. Both of them gave me warnings. 80 is a terrible drive, I didn't think it would ever end. I was super stoked to get on wasatch blvd, pass the 711, and gun it up LCC. When you're in the car for that long, you seriously start to wonder if the drive will ever end; at least it was that way for me.
The next day I started training for serving at 7am, there were only 9 guests staying in the lodge so it was ssuupper laid back and a great environment to train. I got off work at 9:15 and went to buy a pass, then I skied. First run of the year I took the High T out to Jakes and skied awesome windbuff and consolidated pow. I lapped the High T pretty pretty hard for about 3 and a half hours before I was totally beat. Coverage is incredible for this time of year, there are still rocks to watch out for, and some sections of the High T are pretty scant with mostly gravel and rocks; there are ways around though. Stone crusher, nest, high boy and adjacent shots are skiing super nice right now, not very moguly at all, areas of pretty heavy untracked pow, and super creamy conditions overall.
Today was a much better day of skiing for me, it snowed about an inch overnight with most of it getting transported to the backside and east greely. First run I took the High T to the backside and was happy to find all the tracks filled in and about 6 inches of wind transport snow which was great skiing. Continued to take the High t and skied Lone pine which was in great shape and mostly untracked. After maybe an hour or two I started skiing with a group of local girls from the valley and some of their friends from targhee and whistler. One of them is on the Alta womens freeride team and she was there with her coach who has been here for 20 years; he really knew exactly where to go and the number of untracked turns greatly increased when I started skiing with them. They were all damn good skiers and it was great just following them around and keeping up with them on high boy, nest, and some other pretty burly areas. I felt like I improved a lot just today by skiing with a group of locals that are better skiers than me. There are so many good skiers up here its ridiculus, and fat skis are the rule, not the exception. Alta is such an incredible mtn, I really got around to exploring today and ht up the castle, glory hole, backside, and nest. Each run there were untracked turns, and it hasn't really snowed in a week. If you come to UT and you ski, come to Alta at least one day. If anyone tries to sell you the "go to the bird its way better and Alta's terrain isn't as good" they have either never been here, or they are just a complete fool. There are so many nooks and crannies and super burly lines here, just take wildcat or traverse to the eagles nest and you WILL scare yourself, if you want. Supreme opens for the season tomorrow, its snowing right now with forecasts anywhere from 1-3" to 6-8" overnight, I don't work at all tomorrow, and the Billy goats are going to get their cherry popped at the opening of supreme tomorrow. Life is Good. I'll take some pics tomorrow, the last two days I've really just been skiing as much as possible, so no pics yet. sarry
edit: The internet at the lodge is kind slow so uploading pics is a pretty painful process. I'll get some up soon
The End of an Era...We are Shutting Down the Messageboard
The messageboard is now in read-only mode and no new posts or topics can be created. We will leave the messageboard up for historical purposes, but you will not be able to make new posts or comment on existing ones.
We have started a Discord server and hope that you all will join us on there. Technology has changed over the years and maintaining the messageboard has become somewhat of a pain in the butt and Discord offers many features for users, the main one being a very polished mobile app.
We really hope you all will join us on Discord and think you will like the platform. Use the invite link below to join.
https://discord.gg/skisoutheast
The messageboard is now in read-only mode and no new posts or topics can be created. We will leave the messageboard up for historical purposes, but you will not be able to make new posts or comment on existing ones.
We have started a Discord server and hope that you all will join us on there. Technology has changed over the years and maintaining the messageboard has become somewhat of a pain in the butt and Discord offers many features for users, the main one being a very polished mobile app.
We really hope you all will join us on Discord and think you will like the platform. Use the invite link below to join.
https://discord.gg/skisoutheast
Skiing Rules' ongoing TR's and observations from High Boy friends
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EastCoaster
- Expert
- Posts: 3155
- Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:42 pm
This thread is going to make me sad.
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caderader
- Intermediate
- Posts: 660
- Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 8:51 pm
Drove 31 straight hours (~2100 miles) after finals last semester to SLC....and you're right about I80; thoughts of Nebraska and East Wyoming still haunt my dreams (corn! corn?...Corn???) But man it's sweet when you finally wheel into your hotel in SLC to get ready for some sweet riding (MTB in our case). Have an awesome trip and get some turns(and safety in the trees) for us!!!
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EastCoaster
- Expert
- Posts: 3155
- Joined: Sun Dec 31, 2006 1:42 pm
Your job is to safely (like foreal safety, as in avy safety) become an expert at Grizzly Gulch.
Your other job is to photoslut when I show up. I hope you have a bright jacket.
Your other job is to photoslut when I show up. I hope you have a bright jacket.
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skiing rules
- Expert
- Posts: 2050
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2003 5:45 pm
Today was awesome....kind of. I got out later than I was planning on for some reason and drove down to the DPH to get the BG's then I took collins over to supreme. I got to supreme about 30 mins after opening so there was still tons of untracked areas to plunder. The snow was pretty dense so not UT blower, but still incredible. It snowed about 4 inches overnight for a nice added bonus, and it continued to absolutely dump all day, though at times it was more blow than snow. It also nuked graupel for a while. The BG's are incredible, It was zero hesitation after the first turn. The float is great obviously, and they just want to turn. Skiing deep, fairly dense untracked pow through the trees was great. BG's=whiteroom on demand. Its sooo much fun to just smear them sideways for a quick speedcheck and get a faceshot. There were a lot of wind drifts in the supreme area as well so it was fun to throw'em sideways on the drift and get blasted with snow. On the 7th lap I was skiing a chute and hit a branch or root under the snow causing a wipeout and a binding release. The ski went down about 75 feet and when I got down to it The binding was broken. HUGE bummer. I was starting to feel really comfortable with them and then that happened, at the top of supreme. In pretty serious terrain. I had to ski down to the bottom of the mountain on one ski which sucked, my legs aren't that strong yet. So Now I can't use the BG's for a while, and its dumping low density snow right now. Supposed to have another foot by tomorrow afternoon. I attached some pics since photobucket won't let me upload pics for some reason. The first four pics are some randoms in Nebraska, the 5th and 6th are from 80 in Wyoming, and the last two are from today. One shows what the weather was like, the other one shows what happened to the binding