Interlodge

Interlodge is where the ski patrol is doing avalanche control and everyone in the town of Alta are ordered to stay inside until it's over. They never know exactly what time they will end, only when they will start, so some of us have to wake up 1 or 2 hours earlier than normal just to be safe. Normally they do interlodge starting at 11pm and it will normally continue until about 8:30-9am the next morning. Those who have to work the next morning will normally do what they call a straight line at 6am. A straight line is when they allow everyone who works to walk together from the Fort to the lodge in order to get to work on time. They normally also give us several hours warning about interlodge starting so everyone have time to get what ever they need done before it does happen. However, there are times when they don't. For example this morning I was woke up by my semi roommate (she just keep her stuff in the room but normally spends the night in her boyfriend's room) saying that there was going to be an interlodge starting at 7 and it was already 6:30. When I asked her how she knew, she said that the front desk called and told her. Well, she does have a habit of not telling the entire truth, so I called the front desk to make sure. I thought that it was weird that they would give us only a half hour notice. To my surprise, there was an interlodge, only it was starting at 6:45 and not 7. I almost didn't make it in to work. When I left the Fort at 6:44 because I had only that much time to get ready and got here, hopefully on time, she was already sitting in the lobby. The front desk asked who told me 7, and I told them it was her, she kept saying that's what she was told. I personally think that if she was told 7, she wouldn't had been there at 6:45, because she is normally the person walking through the door at the very last possible minute. But, I can't be sure. I'm not saying that she was purposely trying to make me late to work, I just think that if she gave out the wrong information and then later found out that it was wrong, she should go to the people she gave that wrong info to and let them know she was wrong, especially when it's something related to work. But that's enough about her. Back to interlodge. Every now and then there is something call a Max Interlodge. This is where the ski patrol are directing the man-made avalanche directly towards the Fort. Because of this, they completely evacuate the entire Fort to make sure everyone is safe from possibly being hit by an avalanche. Not only do the evacuate the Fort, but they also evacuate all the guests who are on the East side of the building, which is where the avalanche is possibly heading towards. We only had Max once so far and that lasted until about 1 or 2 that afternoon. But I have heard stories from some of the previous employees where it lasted for 2 days. If that ever does happen, they will allow another straight line for the employees to go back to the Fort to gather things to prepare them for a few days and then return back to the lodge in about a half hour via yet another straight line. During the times of straight lines, the ski patrols will not be blowing snow off the mountains to create their man-made avalanche so in sense there will be no danger during those few minutes. Even after Max is lifted, interlodge could still be in effect for another couple of hours. The only time we had Max, interlodge itself wasn't lifted for another hour and a half afterwards. It just means that they are no longer heading an alavanche towards us any more. Also, another reason why no one really likes Max interlodge is that there is no warning for it. The ski patrol don't know when it will occur until after they are on the mountain blowing the snow off. Depending on how much snow is acutally coming off the mountain, depends on if Max is needed or not. So those of us who were planning on working are normally up and it doesn't affect them, but those who don't work or work later that evening are normally still asleep in our beds and are being woke up by the security guy in order to get over here. People in that situation are normally mopping around in the lodge in their PJs griping about how they didn't even have enough time to brush their teeth, put on deodorant, or something of that nature. Any of us will take regular interlodge over Max any day.