Cleanup Day 2020

It’s been a quiet summer on Alta Ski Area’s events calendar. Following the unexpected closure of Alta Ski Area on March 14th due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, every winter event was postponed. As the summer months approached, the Alta Environmental Center decided to follow suit, canceling every event on a very busy summer stewardship event calendar due to local and federal guidelines.

The popular Alta Ski Area Cleanup Day looked to be another casualty of these uncertain times, but as local guidelines shifted, the decision was made to host a scaled-down, masked-up, socially-distanced version of the event. Volunteers were capped at 100 people, divided into families and households and asked to hike up the mountain to an assigned zone. Despite this event looking different than past years, registration filled up in no time and the event went off without a hitch.

It was an incredible feeling to bring the Alta community back together for a mellow and productive day on the mountain.

After receiving an Alta facemask, snacks, water and gloves, volunteers started hiking to their assigned zones on the mountain, picking up garbage on the trails. It was warm and the sky contained a haze from wildfire smoke, but that didn't stop 100+ skiers from climbing to the peaks of Alta in search of litter, lost gear and maybe even a buried treasure or two.

Once reaching an assigned zone, volunteers were permitted to carefully descend the slopes of Alta in search of trash—avoiding trampling wildflowers or disturbing wildlife as much as possible. Large items were placed on service roads for Alta Ski Area employees to collect.

While the event was scheduled from 8am-noon, there were plenty of volunteers that made Cleanup Day a full-day affair, picking up trash and hiking around the ski area well into the afternoon. While last year's Cleanup Day was interrupted by a brief thunderstorm, the weather was more cooperative for this year's event.

You can learn a lot about a skier by their trash left behind. After analyzing 100 bags of garbage here are our unofficial findings:

• Favorite snacks: Clif bars (Microtrash adds up. It's the little corner of a wrapper that gets carried away by the wind).
• Favorite adult beverage left on the hill: Pabst Blue Ribbon. Please be safe as we do not condone drinking on the mountain
• One 4" section of a ski edge found on Corkscrew
• Alta skiers break a lot of ski poles
• Alta Ski Patrol uses enough bamboo to feed a family of giant pandas
• The most official of all findings. Everyone is excited to ski again, regardless of how that looks this winter

Thank you to the Alta Environmental Center, Alta Ski Area employees and all of the incredible volunteers for donating a Saturday to help keep our mountain clean. And thank you for following COVID-19 guidelines and making sure events like this can happen again.