Little Cottonwood Canyon. Highway 210. Alta.
The road climbs slowly at first, to a small bench above the valley floor. For a moment the trees and houses drop away and you can turn and soak in the sea of humanity. More often than not a dark haze obscures your view, the result of the transportation and industry of some 2.2 million people inhabiting the valley. Ahead, the road turns into the canyon, disappearing between the gleaming granite walls.
As you turn to the east and begin to climb, the canyon closes down, and to your left golden, gritty, and exfoliated slabs rise above. It was here they quarried the stone for the temple in SLC, but now climbers swing between cracks looking for adventure, and steel doors into the rock guard secrets the Mormon’s want hidden.
History is written everywhere: in the blasting along the walls, in a small dam on the Little Cottonwood Creek, and in the sparse bolts that tell the scary story of the wall’s first ascents. Above, the Crescent Crack is unmistakable, and the embarrassing memory of a first climb with a new girl pierces the bubble of presence you’d begun to cultivate.
It’s early spring and you’ve ridden down canyon to climb with Liz. First lead of the year on a 5.7 that feels like 5.10. Your legs quiver like a sewing needle as you fumble to remove the useless and terrible pro you just placed in hopes that when Liz follows she thinks you might have done a decent job.
You push this aside like you would any other embarrassing clip and continue on, scanning the cliffs for climbers and plumb lines.
You pass under the Fin, under Becky’s wall, and the golden granite starts to diminish, the rock changes and to your right a waterfall cascades down the polished north-facing stone. Your mind drifts up and a frozen memory takes its place.
Calf’s burn and fingers are numb as you front point your way up the frozen water. Steps are chopped into the bulge from the parade of climbers that lap the icicle daily. Stepping out onto the thin, fresh-surface where no one has climbed, the ice groans under your weight and fractures into plates as you swing your picks into it.
The memory thaws as you continue on, but another quickly takes its place as you pass under the Coalpit Gulch.
It’s late spring as you navigate the exposed water and downclimb around the rushing stream. Above, 4000 feet of skiing is behind you. What started as powder on the headwall slowly turned to cream and then to crap as elevation and temperature changed the snowpack. You follow your partners out and across the stream, boots covered in mud and willows lashing at your face, the memory transcends time as you come back to the present and realize the same smile is now spread across your face.
As you continue to climb the road makes a sharp turn and the upper reaches of the canyon slowly come into view. To your left, the slope rises sharply to the cottonwood divide, over 3000 feet above. It’s hard to tease out exactly where the snow will create couloirs but some are obvious, and as you crane your neck and gaze above, a tire crosses the double yellow and you swerve back into your lane.
Beside you, the road drops off to a canyon floor covered in aspens. You look closely through the foliage for a dark mass, but see none. Passing the trailhead parking lot a small clearing comes into view, and there it is. He stands still and stoic, his brown shoulders a clear foot above your head. Antlers like giant paddles that stretch wider than your wingspan. You slow to a stop and he swings his giant head in your direction. Silence. His bell hangs nearly two feet below his throat and sways as he stares at you. Slowly, he ambles back into the forest, nearly silent as his long black legs steps over broken branches and he disappears into the canyon.
It’s nearly dark now as you begin again. Behind you the valley glows and the setting sun casts and orange blaze into the sky. Snowbird’s Entry One comes into view and you pass right by. The jagged south ridge of Superior is silhouetted against the sky; it tumbles down to the road and leads your eye to the glowing Cliff Lodge.
The tram cables leave their concrete home and stretch into the darkening sky, bright lights dot the mountainside and the constant hum of snow guns fills the air.
Memories flood as you pass through Gate D: storms, slides, interlodge, and the most memorable runs of your life blend into a white haze as you pass beneath the towering south face of Superior.
You pass through another gate and the sheriff’s sign clocks your speed. This last gate is like the magic closet and somehow you’ve stumbled into another world, one where everything is snowier, quiet and humble. Habit pulls you ahead to the end of the road but you realize you don’t live there anymore, so somewhat reluctantly you pull off to the right and into the Wildcat lot.
A few lights are on in the Buckhorn, and with some accuracy you can guess who’s there: the summer staff and a few early stragglers like yourself. The night is dark and cold by now, calling you inside, but before you relent a moment is needed to say hello, to gaze at the few stars above the cottonwood ridgeline, to trace the faint thread of snow down High Rustler, and to breathe in a lungful of the thin, clean air.
2014 marks a decade that I’ve been calling Alta home for the winter, and each fall I’ve stumbled back into Salt Lake, penniless and powder starved, to find my way back up the steep and winding Little Cottonwood Canyon. For many people this road is a special place, a vacation, an escape, or a retreat. Families come from all over and stay for a week, while others escape the valley for only a few hours. But no matter where we come from or how long we stay, we each have to make the same winding trip up the canyon.
I’ve traveled this road more times than I can remember: by bus, by truck, by van, by bike and by foot, and some day, people tell me, I may even ride a train. I know we all see it differently but I often wonder what we share, if not the journey than perhaps the destination. Without a car I’m often bumming rides up and down. Friends, family, co-workers and complete strangers have at times each delivered me to my front door. One friend in particular I’ve probably ridden with more than most, and realizing that now I probably owe him a beer. His truck is big and easily holds my bike, and often times as he turns along the seven sisters I hear him comment, to no one in particular, “longest driveway in the world”.
Sometimes I’ll sit back and close my eyes, trying to guess where we are by the feeling of the turns and the struggle of the engine, mostly I guess wrong, and open my eyes to discover I’m not where I expected. Somehow, this is comforting, knowing no matter how many times I travel this road I cannot ever know it completely.
At the end of the road, Alta has become something of a home. But I think that’s true many people, even those who don’t live here or only visit once: we each travel the winding road and undergo some sort of transformation when we arrive at the top, we take something back with us that can’t be found anywhere else. Alta may have become my winter home but I can’t help but feel like that’s a distinction it’s made, not me. Each year it pulls me back and I find myself tracing the same familiar paths around these mountains.
Dead ends and driveways, these roads hold magic. Ten years of my life in the blink of an eye. All the runs, all the friends, all the storms blend together into one white mess. Below, the road spills down into the valley, back into a world too damaged to be fiction. It’s snowing again in Alta, and everything’s turning white. It always seems like a dream, but for now I’m content to keep it that way.