EMSC
Well-known member
Earliest opening for Eldora in at least 22 years.
And the crowds were there to help celebrate. They opened on Friday the 1st and ran out of parking... on a friday... with only 5 trails open. Crazy new normal for Eldora. Part of it is the simple math of: burn one of 5 days at ABasin? Drive twice as long for 2 trails at Winter Park? or just head up to Eldora in less than a hour which will be at least as good this early in the season.
At any rate, at least there is a 6-pack lift to help gobble crowds now-a-days -though our first lap from line to up, down and back in line took 30 minutes (gulp). We spent much of the day on the Race training lift hitting 350 verts at a time to avoid the crowds. We did manage to hit all the open trails up top. All about the same. Firm snowmaking base with a decent bit of fluff on top.
It appeared that Psychopath had been well skied. Not sure it it was all poaching or if it had been opened at some point (looked like that was the case). That would have been on all natural snow. For Tony's tracking. Eldora claims 39.5" YTD and they look like they need about another 18-24" (that then settles) to really start to open up natural snow terrain. Basically it's really close, but just not quite enough for most places.... Will be interesting to see if Breck can open it's flat blues or greens on the YTD amounts. Plenty of snow to help and to accelerate openings if we can just get that last couple storms is my take.
As for me, It's quite apparent that I need to do some workouts that include side to side movements. Yikes was I feeling it in my hips by the end of the day. At any rate one of my earliest ski days in years.
And the crowds were there to help celebrate. They opened on Friday the 1st and ran out of parking... on a friday... with only 5 trails open. Crazy new normal for Eldora. Part of it is the simple math of: burn one of 5 days at ABasin? Drive twice as long for 2 trails at Winter Park? or just head up to Eldora in less than a hour which will be at least as good this early in the season.
At any rate, at least there is a 6-pack lift to help gobble crowds now-a-days -though our first lap from line to up, down and back in line took 30 minutes (gulp). We spent much of the day on the Race training lift hitting 350 verts at a time to avoid the crowds. We did manage to hit all the open trails up top. All about the same. Firm snowmaking base with a decent bit of fluff on top.
It appeared that Psychopath had been well skied. Not sure it it was all poaching or if it had been opened at some point (looked like that was the case). That would have been on all natural snow. For Tony's tracking. Eldora claims 39.5" YTD and they look like they need about another 18-24" (that then settles) to really start to open up natural snow terrain. Basically it's really close, but just not quite enough for most places.... Will be interesting to see if Breck can open it's flat blues or greens on the YTD amounts. Plenty of snow to help and to accelerate openings if we can just get that last couple storms is my take.
As for me, It's quite apparent that I need to do some workouts that include side to side movements. Yikes was I feeling it in my hips by the end of the day. At any rate one of my earliest ski days in years.