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ALTA
By
Denis Bogan

It's the most beautiful four letter word in the English language, ALTA. I was there once before, in 1984, on my first western trip. At the time I looked in one of the lodges at the base. They are traditional, the rooms are a little bit spartan, yet there is everything a skier could want or need, great food, great ambience, and location at the base of what may be the best ski area in America. I vowed to stay there some day. There are other great places of different character than Alta but none are better. I know because after that '84 trip I decided to do a different western place on every trip, and have now seen and skied almost all of them. It was time to fulfill my vow.

I was registered for a Snowboard course at Okemo, VT, but on the preceding Wed. there was still no snow at Okemo. I had a free round trip ticket on Southwest Airlines which flies from Baltimore to Salt Lake City. It would be so easy. I booked it. Then I surfed the web for information on the 5 lodges located at the base of Alta. They sit on the only 5 places that are not known to be in slide paths. I booked into the Alta Peruvian Lodge for Dec. 9-15 at off season rates. It was $150/day for a bed, 3 meals, a lift ticket and free shuttle rides to any of the base areas. I knew I'd made the right choice when the girl asked if I was without a car and, "may I reserve a van ride for you?" I already knew that Alta had received 200 inches of snow since Thanksgiving Day. Nothing to do but ski, eat, sleep for the next five days. This was going to be good. The lodge is only 30 miles from SLC International Airport and I arrived on Sun. evening just in time for dinner. The food was not just good, it was sensational. I doubt you could do better in any restaurant in Utah.

After dinner I got a call from PattiMac, a friend from VT skiing who now lives in Utah. It hadn't snowed more than 12" for 3 days in a row and some of the locals complained that the groomed slopes were "crunchy". They can feel free to call me any time conditions are that bad. Patti was a delightful guide who did not mind frequent stops to chat that enabled me to catch my breath. This was day one from sea level and the lodge where I slept is at 8400 ft. with the summits at near 11,000. We skied 5 of the chair lifts and ended the afternoon skiing in the trees under the Germania lift in deep lightly tracked powder.

I rediscovered all the great things about Alta, that it is huge, that you see only 10% of it from the lodge, that it is rugged and beautiful, that it reveals some of it's ski secrets readily and hides others extremely well (Alta trail map). Alta limits their ticket sales and the old slow lifts insure that the slopes are never crowded. Nobody minds; skiing like this is worth an occasional wait in a lift line. Typically weekdays are not crowded at all and particularly so in early December. There were 5 empty chairs for every one that had a fanny in it. There are a lot of traverses and catwalks to get to places and a lot of hidden powder stashes. The Alta skier likes exploring. You come to Alta to ski. If you want to ski and party, go somewhere else, ski and shop, go somewhere else, ski and be seen, go somewhere else. Despite, or maybe because of all this Alta is the only ski area in America that has never lost money. They have finished in the black every season for more than 60 years.

Alta remains a shrine, where you come to worship mountains and snow and do a little skiing. In the 19th century it was a silver mining town with a population of 10,000. The mines played out and Alta became a ghost town, then was revived in 1938 when skiing legend Alf Engen told a bunch of SLC businessmen that yes, the mine shafts could be covered up and this would be a good place to ski. He died a year or two ago at age 90. A wooden bust of Alf, proudly wearing his ski instructor's pin, stands at the entrance to the dining room at the Peruvian. I rubbed his head for luck in the morning. Alta today reports a permanent population of 407.

Tuesday morning I awoke to the sound of artillery, my favorite ski country alarm clock. The ski patrol was shooting down cornices formed by the wind overnight so that skiers would be safe from avalanches. I had noted in '84 that Alta seems to open their slide prone terrain before any of the other dozen or so Utah areas will open similar slopes. A local explained it. They have been doing this for 60 years. They have an intimate knowledge of the terrain, to the point where they know every avalanche trigger point, and just how much snow, wind, and wind direction it takes to prime it for trouble. Their safety record bears out their skill. On Thursday opening ceremonies would be held for the new Mineral Basin area that connects Alta and Snowbird. You can ski into the basin from either area and there is one lift going up to Alta and one to Snowbird. For 4 years before this opening the Alta Ski Patrol trained on, and did avalanche control work in this area. There is now a combined Alta/Snowbird lift ticket allowing you to ski both areas in one day connecting through Mineral Basin.

I didn't get to Mineral Basin nor any of the more famous steep runs off the High Traverse. The skies were gray and the light was flat from Tuesday morning through Friday. On the few occasions when I ventured into high treeless areas I got a touch of vertigo when the line between snow and sky disappeared. I tend to be conservative when skiing alone and Sunspot was as far out the High Traverse as I went. However I love skiing in the trees where the snow is soft and the trees provide contrast and reference. I discovered the "Wildcat trees" a beautiful area that seems to be skied only by a handful of locals and ignored by everyone else. There are some narrow chutes in those trees that are at least as steep as anything on the mountain. The powder and the privacy were wonderful and I often could stop for 5 minutes at a time and hear and see nobody. There are 10,000 ways to ski those trees, taking different knolls, drops, a jog to the left here and to the right there. I spent about 2 1/2 days riding the Wildcat lift over and over again. It was the best snow on the mountain and much of it was untracked.

Beginning at midweek it snowed light dry powder more or less continuously. By Wed. closing it was perhaps 4" and by Thurs. closing 8-12". The NOAA weather radio kept repeating a "major Pacific storm warning", first for Wed. night then Thurs. night. The light fluff that fell while we waited for the major storm was easily drifted by the slightest wind. A local reported that he can often "shovel" his driveway with a leaf blower. Visibility above tree line was still a problem and I went with a couple of Drs. from St. Louis who were staying at the Peruvian to the beginner area, Albion basin. It turns out that we lost each other on the first run, but on the chair ride I noticed a couple of things, first Albion basin is a superb green/blue area, varied, interesting, and exceptionally beautiful. It was also uncrowded since mostly hard core skiers go to Alta and they ride the other lifts. The second noteworthy thing was the absence of tracks on some nice looking knolls accessible from a control gate that was clearly visible from the lifts. An inspection run was called for and it was even better than it looked. The knolls were anywhere from 15 to at most 35 degrees in pitch and the combination of light dry powder and fat skis made them perfect. I couldn't believe it as I took run after run in plain sight of the Sunnyside chair and nobody else jumped in. Apparently nobody goes to Albion to ski powder. The best knoll dropped into a grove of trees that itself contained many small knolls giving a roller coaster effect. From there I popped out on a groomed run for 100 yards, then found another knoll. Soon I had put together 3 private powder stashes in succession, then back on the lift for another ride. There was nothing steep or scary but there was also no competition. To make it even better my altitude adjustment kicked in on this third day and I could now eat big chunks of vertical without a rest. Perhaps I have been a steep snob for too long; maybe it's time to become a powder snob.

On most of Thursday and Friday I skied with Brad, who was also staying at the Peruvian. He is young and single and works for a bank in Minneapolis. He was wondering if life might be a little nicer someplace else that has banks and also steep slopes with snow. A sweet young thing at the shuttle stop told him that Wells Fargo Bank is headquartered in SLC and I could hear the wheels start turning in his head. Go west young man!

On Friday morning the long promised storm had finally arrived. Flurries at breakfast soon turned into 1-2”/hour snow with a howling wind. Even in the first hour the drifts were deep along the tree lines and my secret stashes were in perfect shape. At worst we had to go a mere 100 yards in the open before finding the first tree, then drop down a convex slope into the lee of the wind and thigh deep powder.

On the shuttle ride up to Albion we met another Alta person. This place is full of people who would look ordinary in a business environment, but they are not ordinary at all. She was a small slight woman with a 60 pound pack sitting beside her on the seat. She was going to ride the Albion lift, then hike up 1000 feet in a white out blizzard to a cabin owned by friends. She had provisions for a week and Christmas presents for the friends she was going to meet there. The cabin itself, which we did not see, was formerly the general store of one of the mining camps and they had renovated it. Lest you think this is hard core, the previous evening when we had shared the large outdoor hot tub with a bunch of the lodge employees, we discovered that among 5 of them they knew 4 different people who had spent a whole winter living in snow caves so they could ski at Alta. The folks who work at Alta are the most cheerful and helpful people you can imagine, and why not. They are young, fit, beautiful, and they are at Alta with 3 meals and a lift ticket. Unlike so many ski areas I did not see any social barriers or pretensions between the guests and the employees. The guests that I met at meals almost without exception put my ski resume to shame, and I have done a lot of skiing in a lot of places. One woman, who looked comfortably less than 50, was on a 28 year streak of skiing at Alta and staying at the Peruvian. Half the guests had multiple helicopter skiing weeks under their belts. It was common to find people who had skied St. Anton, Chamonix, Zermatt, the Dolomites, etc.

The last run of the week was the one I will remember forever. All day long the Sunnyside lift had been open and the Albion lift closed. Albion goes a bit higher and under the top section is a beautiful round dome where we had watched snow devils swirling. We could have climbed for it but were spoiled by the goods that we could reach with no climbing. We caught one of the first chairs and asked the liftie at the top if it was open. He waved his hand and said, “It’s all yours.” Three turns into the run the wind suddenly gusted to about 50 mph, a rising river of snow swept over the surface, and I was lost in a white room. Not to panic, I just kept making turns. The wind subsided, vision returned, and I saw a roostertail of powder plus big chunks of windcrust streaming out to the sides, as I ripped big sweeping turns down the convex dome. To the left, Brad let out a primal scream. Further down, I found a new slot through the trees. The deep snow was as smooth as silk as I cut a sinuous line down a 10 ft. wide swath under overhanging green boughs. Halfway down I flushed a snowshoe hare that bounded away through the trees. I vowed to return to Alta.

Photo credits: Top photo by John Lichtwrdt. Three photo series of John Lee by Linda Peer.

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