Well, much as your correspondent hates cliches, this is one for the record books. Snowbird passed its all-time season snowfall record yesterday which was 782”. As of this morning, where Canyon Blog remains trapped in Alta, they’re standing at 805”. And it hasn’t stopped.
Alta is sitting on, or rather under, 874”. It was only one week ago today that this space was reporting 764 Alta inches. If public math serves that’s 110” of new in a week. In April.
The day before yesterday’s interlodge was one of the top three ski days of this powder hound’s career, someone who grew up skiing here and clocks 100-120 days per year. Snowbird was brilliant and the untouched laps on Mach Schnell were the most fun runs he ever made within their boundaries. It was magical.
All is not smooth skiing just yet. In a wee hours exchange with Alta avalanche and safety director Dave Richards this morning, as he trudged off at 3am to make it safe for all of us to return to the slopes, he shared this missive: “It got way out of hand with avalanche activity last night.” And that’s certainly not something to take lightly from a guy who deals with the massive destructive power that sits above the town and both resorts.
No one here has had experience with this amount of snow, on top of this amount of snow, at the end of the ski season. Highway 210 hasn’t been open for more than part of one day since last Friday. But our safety folks are the best in the world and know Little Cottonwood better than anyone.
And while we all remain grateful for the UDOT highway folks working to make the road safe, and all of Alta and Snowbird safety and ski patrol crews, there’s good news and blues skies ahead. The snow’s stopping today. And the mountain will begin opening up in a few hours, slowly, and in increments. That’s good news for you because when it does, you’ll be one of the few, the lucky few, who will be up here already. If you’re here that is.
Because Canyon Blog’s best day ever at Snowbird, when there were only 350 skiers on the entire mountain, only happened because he hangs out in Alta. So join your correspondent for the finale of the greatest snowfall season ever. And if you can find him, that offer of a beer or cocoa from last week stands. But only if you can catch him between runs…