I learned to ski sliding amongst the gum trees in the Australian Alps. It was the 1980s when you couldn’t have enough fluro geometric shapes on your one-piece romper suit. I had a bright glow-in-the-dark yellow ski jacket, and my K2 skis looked as if a unicorn had thrown up on them but even then, thanks to a Powder Magazine subscription, I dreamed of the powder filled resorts of America. Namely, Alta in the Wasatch mountain range of Utah USA.
It took me 30 years and 66 other resorts, but I finally made my bucket list destination this season just gone. Though it almost didn’t happen. Leading into my trip, Utah was experiencing one of their worst seasons in five years for snowfall so my timing wasn’t great.
You’ll find the skiers-only resort of Alta half an hour from Salt Lake City at the end of Little Cottonwood Canyon, a long-snaking road considered the most hazardous for avalanches in America. With over 64 slide paths, it is regularly closed on fresh snowfall days for avalanche mitigation.
If you’re staying on mountain at Alta or the neighbouring Snowbird resort during these famed snowstorms then you’ll likely experience “Interlodge” when guests are ordered indoors. You can’t leave your lodge, not even to visit another lodge until the mountains are deemed safe and ski patrol give the all clear. That’s how much snow this resort usually gets.
The saying goes “Never meet your heroes, because you’ll always be disappointed”.
I was worried, given the season, that Alta wouldn’t perform to the level it was known for – metre-loads of uber dry powder on uncrowded steeps. Just two seasons prior they received over 22 metres of snow in the one season and I had been hoping for the same or at the very least, powder.
Day one dawned bright and bluebird, and sadly dry as there had not been an ounce of snowfall for at least five days before my arrival. I followed in the tracks of my guide, Lexi Dowell, from Alta Marketing HQ as we navigated the five lifts to access the big mountain terrain the resort is known for (that, and an old school laid back local vibe).
The resort, one of the first to open in the USA over 87 years ago, boasts 2614 acres of skiable terrain and links with Snowbird via a tunnel and the Alta-Bird lift ticket, should you want even more.
There are no double black diamond runs at Alta, well, there are, but the resort just divides its skiable terrain into beginner, intermediate and expert so you can figure out if a single diamond is in fact a double or a triple. But be warned over half the mountain (55%) is dedicated to advanced and above and only 15% to beginner.
Dowell jokes that Alta stands for “another long traverse ahead” as there is often some effort to getting access into the best terrain. This day was particularly tricky as we side-stepped up a steep, narrow and icy cliff face, bumping and scraping across a long and rocky traverse. The chance of good snow seemed unlikely.
We rounded a bend onto the top of Greeley Bowl, and it looked like it had a fresh cover of snow. The strong winds from the night before had created our very own powder bowl. To be fair, it wasn’t Alta deep, and the snow wasn’t all cotton candy soft, but my first day cruising the mountain looking for anything that resembled fresh snow was better than anticipated at the start of that day.
The traditional big flaky snowy snowflakes that bless Alta are called “Alta Magic” by the locals. When I got to the resort on my second day it didn’t start with magic, it started with graupel. For those not familiar with graupel, it’s snow that’s neither feathery nor flaky; more like mini snowballs. And it was coming down at an inch an hour.
As I tackled the steep tree runs off the old two-seater-no-bar Wildcat chair I felt like I was in a Warren Millar film because when you ski in nine inches of graupel you ski in slow motion. You can attack your line as hard as you can, but skiing in a giant bean bag slows you down. I liked it, though. It gave you more time to avoid hitting a tree.
Little did I know that the Alta Magic was on its way, come lunchtime it fell as big flecks of fantasticness all afternoon in refill heaven. Turns out Alta is perfectly positioned at the top of a box canyon to take in the snowstorms that cross the Great Basin and crash into the Wasatch. That’s why it can snow 40cms in Deer Valley and Park City but that can fall as double in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Day three I was fully prepared and left my hotel at the base of the canyon at 6.00am with plenty of time to make it to first chair at 9.15am. Lucky for me the road was open. This was the Alta I had come for, the one that once experienced makes folks pack up their homes and move to Utah. The one where fist pumps, pole taps and smiles with perfect powder strangers is the order of the day.
Mission accomplished.
Brian Thacker was hosted by Utah Office of Tourism.
