Alta » Taking vacation the last week of the ski season has become a rite of spring for Murray resident John Harte.
For half a dozen years, the senior contract specialist at L-3 Communications has taken full advantage of his Alta season pass, heading up Little Cottonwood Canyon to savor the always abundant snow without lift lines or crowds.
"This is my place to relax," said Harte, 54. "This is why I live in Utah."
Even by Alta's snowy standards, this season's finale has been remarkable. Since his vacation began April 9, Harte has skied through 53 inches of new snow, a fraction of the 231 inches that have fallen in less than a month.
On March 21, Alta had received 445.5 inches of snow this season. None had fallen in the previous 11 days. But then the skies opened up. The 9.5 inches of snow recorded March 22 kicked off a 27-day period in which the resort had measurable snow on 20 days.
"We had a series of four to five storms that were almost carbon-copies of one another," said National Weather Service meteorologist Larry Dunn. "We got locked into a pattern and the same thing happened over and over."
Big troughs from the Pacific Ocean dropped into the Great Basin and closed off, dropping off of the main jet stream and circulating very slowly.
As a result, Dunn said, "a lot of times we get storms that last eight to 14 hours. These lasted for days. This last one arrived early Tuesday and here we are on Friday and it's still cold and cloudy with some showers over the mountains. Five days from just one storm. That is what is impressive about this four-week period."
There have been bigger snowfall months at Alta.
The resort received 244.5 inches in December of 1983 -- in the middle of Utah's two big flood years. And because this year's impressive total straddles two months, neither March nor April will surpass the 206 inches measured in November of 1994.
"But it's still a lot in a one-month period," Dunn said, noting that the storm cycle has benefited the whole state.
Park City Mountain Resort extended its season a week. Snowbird should be well positioned to stay open on a limited basis through Memorial Day. And water-supply managers statewide are looking to having comfortable summers. The water content of the snowpack in northern Utah drainage basins is likely to fill all reservoirs except Bear Lake, Dunn said, while the few drainages in central and southern Utah that are below normal are not that far down now.
Coming so late in the season, however, this abundance of snow is unlikely to yield great financial dividends for the state's ski industry, struggling like everyone else to survive the recession's bite.
"We do our best to make a lot of noise about the snow, but there's a limited appetite out there," said Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, marketing arm for the state's 13 active resorts. "It's a great time to come skiing, but travel publications and newspapers are talking about summertime stuff."
Still, Aaron Straub, a high school basketball coach from St. Mary's, Pa., found Friday a delightful day to ski, all of the resorts near his home having closed a month ago. "There's nothing like skiing in April."
And no place like Alta, said Harte, looking forward to skiing this weekend in sunshine -- then, after the lifts close, staking out a spot in the parking lot, a cooler next to his car, waiting to see what friends he might run into.
"It's a party atmosphere," he said. "That's another reason I like Alta."
