Bad day at Alta, April 2, 2010

Well actually, it was a dream day at Alta. 19 degrees at the base, snowing lightly and sunshine, 8+ inches of new. Large crowds gathered.

I moved past the large que at Collins to 2 seat fixed Wildcat which finally started loading at 9:30. On back up diesel. The run down was the stuff of dreams. I was enveloped in cold smoke at every turn as the snow seemed to vaporize as I moved through it.

Then it happened. The Collins, after running for a few minutes stopped running with every seat full. Then 2 other chairs on the mountain, Supreme and Sugarloaf stopped. No power.

Accurate information was hard to come by. The word was that Sugarloaf was open and that everyone should take the rope tow over to Sunshine which ws running. Meanwhile the people on the lifts were stranded for over an hour. They stopped loading Wildcat.

The rope tow line was 20+ minutes and the lift line on Sunshine, 45 minutes.

Wildcat opened at around 11:30, still running at slow speed on diesel. Huge line. Up to the top and hiked the ridge and skied down the face. The snow was thigh deep but quite heavy by then. If your tips sunk you had to dig them out to extricate them. Around noon they opened Sugarloaf. And at 1:00 the Collins finally started hauling up folks.

In classic understatement, the newspaper quotes Alta, general manager Onno Wieringa, "everything wasn't quite as smooth as we would like for a couple of hours." The problem was a "jumper" that blew and took out the power to Alta and Brighton. Link to story: Power outage dampens powder day at Brighton, Alta .

We spent the afternoon waiting in line and doing 4 laps on the High Traverse. I guess I shouldn't complain but it was a disappointment. But I'll get some baxk next year.

Picture 1: Lots of skiers, pow, and no working lifts
2 and 3: My son finally hitting some afternoon powder

Snowbird and Solitude were unaffected ??? If so sounds strange.

no power problem at snowbird at all it was great that day