Alta vista, baby

To reward myself for the long snowy drive to Utah, I went to see more snow. But this time on skis at Alta, just south of Salt Lake City. It claims "the greatest snow on earth," and it might just be right.

It is a relatively simple place, relatively cheap by skiing standards, and has several of the highest, best hills around. The first picture is their illustration of their hills and trails. I skied the one in the center right and the upper and lower left.

This is a picture of the area that I grabbed off the Internet, since I did not want to lug a camera along. It was sunny and beautiful, as in this photo, and the vistas from the top were enough to keep my need for mountains satisfied after we return to the too gently rolling hills of Austin.

The snow was absolutely divine. There were 12 inches of new powder snow. So after a warm up run or two, I did a couple of runs down slopes that had not been packed down and were covered with powder. There is something truly wonderful about skiing through unbroken snow that no one else has skiied though yet. Feel free to do neo- Freudian readings of that statement but it was fun anyway.

My powder skiiing is not as impressive as that in this picture I grabbed off the Internet, but it was fun to do something I had literally not done for 15 years. It was harder work now, but hey, aging happens.