The wait list for a seasonal ski locker at Alta is decades long. Alta locker holders are zealots, high priests in the Church of Snow and Ice. True believers hike up the mountain, like Knights Templar on a grail quest, skis crossed on their backs, traversing pencil-thin ridgelines. They punish themselves with physical penance, blissfully embracing pain as they preach to heretics the John 3:16 of the Church of Snow and Ice: “Earn your turns.” An Alta skier doesn’t invest in the latest ski fashion. Their gear is often decades old, duct-taped and threadbare.
To Alta acolytes, skiing on the same skis they received 20 years ago as a high-school graduation present is a symbol of dedication, contrition. They grind their own edges, wax their own skis, like fingering a rosary, a preseason meditation and appeal for snow. Opening day is a holy day, as is the last day of the season, on which they imbibe hot-buttered rum like sacramental wine and offer prayers in thanks for the season that was and more prayers for the early arrival of the next.
Although there are now more creature comforts at Alta, with new lodging properties and renovations. There are still pockets of Spartan accommodations and weather-worn lodges to match the asceticism of the true Alta skier. The Alta Lodge, for example, still rents out rooms built in the ’30s that are essentially a monk’s cell—a bed and a coffee maker. Pilgrims return year after year to those very rooms, while suites in the new additions boast in-room hot tubs and 600-thread-count sheets. Alta acolytes are members of a congregation, parishioners who consider niceties sinful.
At Alta, you come to ski; sleep and comfort are the devil’s work. And the hated snowboarder is the devil’s henchman. Alta is one of only three resorts in the U.S. that deny snowboarders. Snowboarding is a blasphemy, a road to perdition.
Heaven forbid an Alta-ite marries a snowboarder; one would have to wonder how such an unholy union began in the first place. All of Utah’s resorts have their devotees, fanatics and worshippers. But Alta breeds Alta-tude. Watch for its practitioners as you drive up the canyon. Seek the lone Alta symbol in the center back window and ye shall find them.
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