Alta | Snowbird

Alta and Snowbird were the next resorts on our Mountain Collective pass.  We arrived in Salt Lake to find no snow on the ground and stories about how dry it had been.  Nevertheless, we also heard that the coverage was still good on the mountain, which was good enough for us!  We drove way up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Alta to find it rather cold.  We had acclimated to skiing in 45 degree weather and kind of forgot how to handle temperatures in the teens.  Unfortunately, our boots slept under the bed in the van and were pretty frozen when we went to put them on.  The frozenness of our feet made it's way up our bodies until we were pretty popsicley and sad by the end of the second run.  We went into a lodge and warmed our boots under the hand dryer, which helped for a run or two, but then it was back to being cold.  We went back to the van to regroup.  I put on as many layers at possible, warmed my feet in my down booties, and had a hot chocolate.  After that, we felt rejuvenated and skiied the rest of the day.  The groomers were really awesome, and the coverage was really good, despite not having received snow in a while.  It was interesting skiing at a resort with only skiers- no snowboarders allowed.  Alta is a stellar mountain and I am excited to go back sometime to get some of that Utah powder (again, about a week after we left they got EPICALLY dumped on.  Dangit!).

Next up was Snowbird, just down the canyon from Alta.  It was back to 45 degree weather on our day there.  We checked out most of the mountain and had a good time exploring.  Alta and Snowbird are both really cool mountains and I'm glad they got a bunch of snow after we left, because I'm sure the rest of the season there will be stellar!