I got to Alta about noon and had about 6 inches on the truck when i tried to depart sometime after 4. great skiing. ride home not so great . what a disaster it was out there.
Skied at Solitude from 9:00 to 11:40. Snow began falling just before 10:00 and started to really pound down around 11:00. Continued unabated until around 5:45, when it transitioned to moderate flurries. Roughly 9 - 10" on the vehicle when I left at 6:50. Reported 13" in the past 24 hours this morning and more fell during the day today. Traffic was backed up canyon past the Moonbeam entrance beginning at 2:15 and never relented until 6:35. Leaving at 6:50, we caught the red snake about halfway down to Silver Fork Lodge. Last weekend, leaving at 7:25 on Saturday evening, it took an hour and 35 minutes to arrive at the mouth. On Sunday it was not so bad: leaving at 6:45 it took an hour and 10 minutes to get to the mouth.
Both weekends virtually every single backcountry trailhead parking area in the canyon was massively over-parked. I don't think it would be exaggerating to estimate the number of cars parked along the canyon road outside Spruces to be between 175 to 200. That doesn't include the off- road parking in Spruces large car park but it's been greatly reduced in size by the mountains of snow plowed many, many, many days this winter. Reynolds Flat/Cardiff Fork and Mineral Fork were runners up with many dozen vehicles each. Silver Fork, Beartrap, Willow Lake, Butler Fork, the s-curves, and the trailheads around Solitude were also teaming with vehicles. No doubt those further up canyon from Solitude and along the open part of Guardsmen's were chock-a-block as well. On a sad note:
https://www.ksl.com/article/50572654/skier-dies-in-little-cottonwood-canyon-fall
Today was yet another in the many dozen days this season that could be described as having absolutely stellar conditions.