Alta, UT, Report: Greetings from Altaska

Report from Tuesday, February 28th, 2023

Alta Ski Area has received 573″ of snowfall this season and it’s still not March.

The resort is literally stacked with snow.

Terrain features are so snowed over and pillowy that you’d swear you were somewhere in Alaska and not the Wasatch.

Greetings from Altaska.

Good morning, Wildcat. | Photo: SnowBrains

Alta’s interlodge ordinance was lifted at 9:33 am this morning and when that happened we immediately went outside and got in line at Wildcat.

Lines were not bad this morning.

People cheered when the lift opened and we took it up and over to Westward Ho, which skied tremendously.

We were some of the first few skiers in there, skiing something like 20″ of the most perfect, untouched, fluffy, friendly skiing snow.

It was smooth and soft as could be.

Skiers coming down near Wildcat. | Photo: SnowBrains

Face shots were thrown around left and right, along with some cliff hucks.

From there we got on Collins and hit Fred’s Trees which skied awesomely.

Not long after that, Patrol opened the High Traverse and we mobbed over to hit a cliff dubbed ‘The Nipple’ before continuing on toward Bombay Chute.

Bombay Chute was completely untouched and hadn’t been skied yet—we were not expecting this.

We skied the chute, making fresh turns all the way down at speed.

It felt like a pristine backcountry powder lap.

Alta’s very own Tom Derks skiing down in the world’s greatest powder snow on the Baldy Shoulder at Alta. | Photo: SnowBrains

At the tow rope we exchanged laughter and damn-near tears of joy.

The was one of the best inbounds laps I’ve ever taken in my life and the day was only just getting started.

After that we hit another Kitty lap where we skied the Shoulder, followed by a couple laps on Sugarloaf down Extrovert and some trees on the looker’s left of the liftline not far above Sugarloaf’s bottom terminal.

We even saw a porcupine.