Day 10: Altahoics Anonymous

Around different ski areas across America, I had notice a peculiar sticker every now and then. It would pop up on cars and helmets and me not being from the west, it took a while to figure out. The sticker was finally explained to me by a fellow ski patroller in college; it was for people who had experienced the magic that is Alta. Apparently, if you went once, you were hooked for life.

After that point, I had made it a priority to learn more about this mythical ski hill. The words from everywhere were more than glowing. Between the terrain, snow conditions, and lack of crowds reported in the reviews; I had heard so many great things about the skiers-only resort of Alta, I knew that no matter what this was the one mountain I definitely had to do.

Alta is actually right next the Snowbird resort in the little cottonwood canyon just outside of SLC. Benton and Briana had decided to stay at Snowbird and let Grant and I go explore alone and we would all meet up at the end of the at the Alta Peruvian Lodge for a beverage in their bar that featured free appetizers at their après ski happy hour.

Grant and I road up the front facing lift to the top, admiring the extra sparkly snowflakes once again. We noted to each other all the good terrain and snow conditions along the way to the top that we wanted to hit up, but noted that the area seemed small and that is was good we were only spending a day there. We did a run down the West Rustler Bowl and headed back up and noticed this time that perhaps there were some other runs on the back of this mountain as a sign pointed out “To Sugarloaf”. We skied to the back only to have the back of the resort completely open up and reveal an addition 3 more areas to ski. More than tripling what we had seen in the front.

Grant and I did some exploring and found a steep canyon/gulch that created a natural half pipe and several hucking points that Grant and I absolutely loved (him hucking, me piping). In fact, we loved it so much that we did several laps discovering all the idiosyncrasies of the runs and hitting up all the interesting new parts that we would suddenly see. I love knowing a run. Really knowing it; all its bits and pieces and making it your own. It was hands down my favorite part of the day.

After we had gotten our fill, we headed over to farside of the mountain and up the Supreme lift to do the shoots that we had eyed from Sugarloaf. It was pretty late in the day so we were nervous that the lift would close before we made our way out there, but were stoked to find out that we had just squeaked in. The snow was in great condition since it had been warmed by the sun all afternoon and we had a great exploration run, a real one to be done again sometime on a future trip. Hopefully soon since I think I may have what the members of the Altaholics Anonymous have. . . . . .

We had a few more traverse runs as we made our way back to the front of the mountain and down toward the Peruvian lodge for free hot cookies before the bar opened. We found Benton and Briana and headed up for Utah-style beverages (aka, pretty weak due to their mormon drinking laws), we got our fill of poppers, wings, and shots.

The night ended back at basecamp with a Stolichnaya sponsored Girls vs Boys euchre tournament (that ended in a draw, which of course please everyone). Good times for sure.