Now that the 2018-19 ski season has come to an end, we at the Goldminer’s Daughter Lodge would like to take this opportunity to thank our guests for staying with us and helping to make last winter a memorable one.
For those of you who don’t obsess over the Snow Report like we do, or who haven’t checked it in a while, here’s a brief reminder of what transpired last winter. The Alta Ski Resort finished its 81st season with a total of 626 inches, which was — appropriately enough — about 81 inches above the 40-year average. It also turned out to be the highest storm total since the 2010-11 season when we received a whopping 723.5 inches. During the months of Dec, Jan, Feb, and March, we broke the 90-inch mark, and starting on the weekend of Feb 2nd we received a total of 60 inches within the span of a 100 hours. If you were fortunate enough to be here, this specific storm gave us our one and only Country Club Day — something that doesn’t happen very often.
What did all this record-setting season mean to us here at the lodge? And how did it affect our day-to-day operations? It certainly came as a relief to us, especially after receiving a measly 388 inches last year and not breaking a 100 inches until January 10. The shortage of snow during the early part of the 2017-18 season left many of our guests feeling nervous and discouraged and second-guessing their annual ski vacation. Thankfully things were different this year. It started snowing early October, our reservation phone kept ringing off the hook , and our guests were pleased to be experiencing the legendary conditions they’ve come to expect from Alta.
At the same time with all this snow and the many storms that came in one after another it sometimes felt like we were always trying to catch up. always trying to raise our heads and catch a breather. There was always a lot of snow to shovel, a lot of windows and fire escapes to dig out, a lot of parking spaces to clear. There were all sorts of traffic restrictions to follow, a lot of guests and live-out employees who needed to make up and down the canyon. There were always large crowds to manage and pending food deliveries to worry about. We even had a total of 15 early-morning Interlodges to handle, most of which — thankfully enough — never exceeded its estimated 8:30AM opening, allowing our guests time to line up with the other skiers and jostle each other for first chair.
There was also a not-so-memorable afternoon on January 21 when the canyon closed around 1:30PM because of some natural slides which hit the road and partially buried several cars with their occupants still inside. This unexpected closure caused hundreds of days skiers to become stranded up in Alta, most of whom ended up inside our lodge without any idea of when the road would reopen and fearing they might have to sleep on the floor or the hallways because we were completely booked at the time and didn’t have any extra rooms available. To make things worse we also had many departing and arriving guests who were stuck as well and didn’t know if they’d make it up or down. But thanks to the hard-working UDOT crew and the Alta town marshals they were able to open the road for a few hours before closing it again for the night.
That’s our recap for the 2018-19 winter season. If you have any amazing or memorable stories to share, please feel free to leave any comments or submit any photos. As a reminder we already have our new rates posted for the 2019-20 winter season and once again we’re offering our returning guests a 12% discount. So feel free to give us a call and book your stay early!