Powder Panic Returns to Utah

2020 has been the strangest year in recent history. So why would a powder day be normal? It wasn’t. We hit the canyon road about 8:15am and the traffic was not bad at all. That must have been because everyone was already at Alta. Arriving at Collins parking lot around 8:40am we were denied access, it was full. OK no problem we parked at Albion and skied down to Collins to find the lines had ballooned. We wrongly chose Collins. Wildcat opened first and skiers were back at the base before we were moving. Eventually Collins started loading. And since Tower 10 Traverse wasn’t open yet we realized Wildcat was the place to be.
Things did improve however. Tower 10 opened and so did Baldy Shoulder. What was interesting was we were convinced only Ballroom opened up to the rope line. There were 70 skiers out there all dropping into Ballroom. We were bummed about this until we finally saw a skier hit that low traverse into the Shoulder. That is when we realized we were probably going to get a sick line out there because no one except 3 skiers ahead of us had decided to do the side-step! We saw Tombstone at the top looking tasty af and it turned out to be just that. We hiked the Shoulder from Wildcat for another lap. 
The snow today was good. It wasn’t fluff, and it was getting moguled up with the crowds. But the untouched stuff was skiing deep and bouncy and somewhat fast. It was thicker but that was actually good for covering up rocks so we’ll take it. 
Alta is really starting to fill in. I could possibly see the High Traverse opening soon. The Backside to Greely traverse will likely open tomorrow and possibly Supreme chair. Rocky Point is in our near future.