Stranded at Alta

A strom came though Utah this week starting late Wednesday night that was dumping large amounts of snow in the mountains. So I had the bright idea to head up to Alta for a half day of skiing before heading to work. Our CFO also liked the idea, so we callled a "morning meeting" on the mountain (which we try to do several times a year).

So we had a great day of skiing. There was so much powder -- the storm brought 37 new inches of snow to Alta. I have never skiied in so much powder. I even rented powder skis for the occassion which were very helpful.

At 12:30pm I was ready to call it a day and head into the office. And then they closed the canyon road because of heavy snow and avalanche danger. The reopened the canyon at 5:00pm, but shut it down quickly because an avalanche swept a carload of 9 people off the road (they are fine). Then Alta required us to "interlodge" -- meaning, everyone had to go inside. The order was enforced by the resort putting a chain over the door and a county marshall. The canyon remained closed all night.

The next day I saw a dozen avalanches, most caused by the resort firing cannons into the snow. They let us start to dig our cars out at 10AM the next morning -- my car had snow up to its windows. At 12:30PM they reopened the road, and I had the pleasure of telling the people I work with about our long, productive...meeting. Since I did not have a change of clothes, I worked the day in my ski gear. I was surprised by how so few people even noticed -- I hope I have a few more "morning meetings" this year.