Alta Stories
May 9, 2005
It may sound overwrought to wax on about what is essentially a commercial mass-market vacation, but Alta, Utah is magical in ways that Disneyland — or Vail — could never be. Maybe it’s the rustic, communal lodge with its mix of old money and granola-crunchy atmosphere. Or the fact that Alta is still a dangerous place with miles of ungroomed terrain, avalanche chutes and unmarked cliffs. But I like to think that it’s a pocket of pleasure and paradise plunked down amongst millions of self-righteous, straight-laced Mormons and that’s what makes it all the more enjoyable!
The morning after it snows — and it snows a lot — you are awaken by Howitzers firing on the avalanche prone slopes. One of my oddest experiences was skiing when the snow was falling at about a foot an hour (no joke). While most of the better skiers were skiing the upper slopes, I was bagging clean powder lines by myself on the lower mountain. Stopping for a rest, I spied a hat in the snow. Thinking I was scoring a free hat, I snatched it. But there was a head underneath! The almost frozen skier had passed out, thanks to a combination of altitude and recreational drugs, and if I had come by just a few minutes later he would have been entirely buried! I wrapped him up in my coat and got the ski patrol; he lived. My coat did not — he managed to spew at least a quart of mucus over every inch of it.
The ski patrol in particular attracted some eccentric personalities. I don’t know what personal demons T-Bone was running from but I do know he had a plate in his head courtesy of Vietnam. He roughnecked on oil rigs two weeks on/two weeks off all summer and ski patrolled Alta all winter. On his days off he would speed climb chutes on Mt. Superior and ski down past the upclimbing ice climbers. When he was drinking, he tended to lear at women — of all sizes and shapes — but his fellow patrollers kept him in line. If they lost him to jail they’d end up with the nasty job of carrying grenades and shells to the top of the mountain every morning.
In addition to his minor perversions, T. Bone also was cheap. He would dumpster dive and find orphaned skis from broken pairs. Most mornings he would ski the eastern side of the mountain with 215 GS skis on the left foot, 204 Slaloms on the right. As he explained it, the bigger GS skis made longer, sweeping arcs which bore him westward across the open slopes. When he got to the western side of the mountain he would switch the left and right skis so he could ski back home.
Besides the obvious hazards of skiing with explosives, patrollers like T. Bone had to deal with powder hungry skiers that often escaped into the backcountry. The avalanche prone boundaries of Alta are marked with metal warning signs staked to metal posts. On a rather prodigious powder day, T-Bone was in hot pursuit of some out-of-bounds skiers when he impacted a boundary sign buried in the fluff. Ripped open from belly button to anus, T-Bone eventually recovered. Minus his testicles. His voice got sweeter and his beard abit thinner — but he continued skiing just as hard.
The last time I visited Alta it blew and iced and stormed for most of the week. The skiing was about as bad as it could get and I was pissed. But it was the end of a poor ski season and I wanted one last run. The High Traverse was empty at 4 pm and the visibility was zilch. I almost bailed out on Sunspot or one of the minor runs, but instead I climbed higher to keep my options open. Nobody was left on the mountain, the wind was howling and I was getting a little creeped out wondering what would happen if I had an accident. I decided to go down High Rustler for no other reason than I’d have a better chance of being found — frozen, like the guy I referred to above — on a wide open run. To get into Rustler at the highest point you come around the mountain top and — boom — you’re right there, overlooking the entire canyon. You have to do a little forward bunny hop to get over the rock ledge without dinging your skis. As I jumped in, it was almost a white-out. Suddenly the blowing snow abated, the clouds opened up and the sun came out. I was at the top of High Rustler with a completely untracked field of wind-blown powder all to myself. I turned left, turned right, maybe five times down the entire mountain. I managed to get all the joy of an entire ski season into one run.
See why I like Alta?