The Utah Department of Transportation announced early Monday morning that Little Cottonwood Canyon was estimated to open at 10 a.m. The announcement came after the canyon was closed all day Sunday due to avalanche and road work.
But as a major roadway opened, thousands of residents along the Wasatch Front remained without power, per an outage map from Rocky Mountain Power.
“Rocky Mountain Power line crews continue their work restoring service to customers along the Wasatch Front as a persistent winter storm brought heavy wet snow to the area,” the utility’s website states. “It will take some time to assess damage, make repairs and restore power because of the extent of the damage. Some customers may experience multiple outages or extended outages.”
What’s caused the traffic and outages has been a persistent winter storm that has brought several feet of snow in the last few days.
In the last 48 hours alone, Brighton received 37 inches of snow, Deer Valley received 33 inches, Snowbird got 32 inches, Sundance and Solitude got 31 inches, and Alta got 29 inches, per Ski Utah’s snow report.
All that snow did cause trouble at one of Utah’s ski resorts. Sundance announced on its Instagram page that “many trees came down on power lines lower in the canyon,” which caused a power outage and closed lifts for Monday.
Alta announced its state of interlodge — where people are confined to resort buildings while avalanche crews work — was lifted. As a result, the Collins, Wildcat and Sugarloaf lifts will be the first ones to open at the resort.
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