Eldora Skiing 2023/2024

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Mostly a picture thread. Jr has tons of early am training starts so arrival is way before the public. Snowmaking is running ~8-9 days behind last year. way too may warm stretches mixed in. Weekdays not overly crowded, but reasonably busy at the same time. I only ski for ~90 minutes each day. I work on the laptop the rest of the time (I would totally take a day off if conditions warranted).

Found an actual piece of glaze ice on upper Diamondback. mostly its firm chalky snow.

Snowmakers working very hard to get more backside terrain open. Corona trail was at this state 8-9 days earlier in 2022.

The snowmaking is leaving a phenomenal soft/buttery surface to si though.

Racers loaded the lift 8 minutes prior to this very early am shot...

Important information to share, for sure.

 

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Not exactly crowded at the very beginning of each day:

This is a long time friend who is now retired/musician

I'm hoping Sbooker can identify the most important part of the equipment setup... It's kind of obscure in this pic, but oh so important.

 

[jimk]

Have you hugged your snowmaker today? Eldora looking good!
I've spent many decades skiing in the Mid-Atlantic, where a string of cold nights for snowmaking is much more important than a single one foot snow storm.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Proportion of terrain under snowmaking is much lower at most western areas than in the East.

a string of cold nights for snowmaking is much more important than a single one foot snow storm.

This is generally true here in SoCal at Big Bear with 100% snowmaking, though a run of multiple days of 24/7 snowmaking here tends to follow specifically upon passage of a cold front. We have seen neither so far this season, so these areas are only 1/3 open now vs. long term average of 73% at New Year's. There have been only 2 other seasons in the past 30 years with less terrain open New Year's at Snow Summit than now.

 

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Proportion of terrain under snowmaking is much lower at most western areas than in the East.

Dramatically lower. Though at Eldora a huge % of it's cut trails have the capability via pipes and hydrants (though a couple virtually never get snow made as they tend to run out of water first). This year far too many days with temps hanging at a low ~25F and highs in the 30's or low 40's is slowing things up quite a bit.

Current forecast has temps dropping back toward normal in ~3 days.

 

[Tony Crocker]

they tend to run out of water first

I suspect this is the constraint at most western areas in terms of how many runs they are willing to provide with snowmaking coverage. Water supply is much less of a problem in the Alps and the Northeast.

 

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Up-hilling is now re-opened after the holiday closure (they open earlier, larger expected crowds, etc...). 7-9a is the early bird route which starts off straight up Bonanza trail (see ants to the left side). It's 1,000 verts to the top...

I decided that applying skins at the car was just easier.

~7:30am groups: lifties to the left, U14's at the poma

I am definitely the slow one.

After weeks of warmth, this SE facing corner of Jolly Jug Glade is looking quite bad....

Ironically I took a pic at nearly the exact same spot on Dec 23 of 2022 just over a year earlier...

I would characterize the 'group' as being ~1/3 experts staying in shape for backcountry, 1/3 Intermediates probably for winter exercise and 1/3 as barely capable of skiing down the designated blue square trail for early AM, clearly only there for the uphill exercise.

Heavy dose of snowmaking on Muleshoe currently. ~6-7 more trails after that have snowmaking infrastructure, but I'd bet they will run out of water once they hit ~2-3 more trails after Muleshoe.

 

[ChrisC]

I would characterize the 'group' as being ~1/3 experts staying in shape for backcountry, 1/3 Intermediates probably for winter exercise and 1/3 as barely capable of skiing down the designated blue square trail for early AM, clearly only there for the uphill exercise.

Wait. There is a 1/3 of the group who have touring gear yet cannot make it down a blue run with some fluidity? Has "earn-your-turns" become so cool that it sucks in every Front-Ranger/Boulderite in, regardless of skill? Sounds like there is a bit of a poser problem going on. Brooklyn in the mountains.

Why can't they stick to an "ice bath" and gym workout? I don't know why people want to spend money and soak in cold tubs, but it's the latest fad.

 

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Wait. There is a 1/3 of the group who have touring gear yet cannot make it down a blue run with some fluidity?

Yep. Plenty of near crashes and very awkward skiing by some.

 

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Apparently Friday is "crazy tons of uphiller's day" at Eldora. Probably over 200 would be my guess. I'm mostly doing it since I have a free 1.5 hours from arrival to public lift opening (really I could always work course crew too, but I did that for decades already).

If I didn't know better, I would have thought a ski-mo race was happening or something.

Some semblance of Winter finally returned the past few days as well. Much colder and a touch of snow. Unfortunately, Eldora is poorly placed to take much advantage of the most recent storms. Just an inch a day, but it had a surprisingly big effect on surface conditions even at that. It's been heavily flurrying nearly continuously for a couple days now. Unlike the normal mtn snow showers coming in and out, Eldora is right on the edge of the orographic uplift of the continental divide so sort of snowing and sort of sunny at the exact same time and pretty much continuously so.

 

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Finally more backside terrain opened by Friday as well. And by today (Saturday), Patrol was doing 'tours' of 20 at a time down Muleshoe which is still finishing up with snowmaking,

This is just below the merge of Wolf Tongue and Alpenhorn.

Just out of sight to the left from the last picture is this non-groomed section with big snowmaking swales:

One small corner of the Lookout patrol area:

1st 'guided' tour of the season on Muleshoe... Note the kinda sunny, but kinda not conditions

very creamy and fluffy for snowmaking

I should have had my Gopro, lol

Eldora has a weird mix of mostly old school snowmaking gear. Though also a handful of modern stick guns and a fan gun or two used in the base areas...

 

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Does MLK weekend count for the holiday portion of this thread title? Close enough.

Winter has definitely arrived. -12F at the house at super early departure time. Eldora with 4" on the report and approx 16 inches in just over a week (not spectacular, but so much better than the prior month). A bit of an inversion with Temps +4F when pulling into the parking lot at 7:15a.

But we arrived to this (you can see the base of the 6 pack in this believe it or not):

That would be some continuing snow and 15-20mph winds, gusting plenty. Absolute white out at times early.

Couple new trails open this week and by departure a handful of mostly "fools gold" natural snow trails (tons of hidden rocks and stumps).

I pushed across the top flat to ski Muleshoe (3rd tracks), cutting off most of the traffic headed to Corona the standard way. That got me 4th tracks on Corona too. Followed up by ~8th tracks on Alpenhorn. So few people ski that trail and it's one of the best. I skied 3 further laps on that trail because ther continued to be big unskied patches on skiers right.

The 4-6"of snow was pretty dense from cold small flakes and wind affects. Still skied great though. After 6 runs I needed to warm up just a touch and went to the Lookout lodge. Heater must have failed overnight... you could see your breath inside (but no wind at least).

Quite the view, eh?

Then I headed for the Indian Peaks lift which promptly broke down. Can't recall a mechanical in quite some time. So I got to enjoy hiking out to the Corona road...

Lift line, hiking line... whichever

Turn right about where the top hiker is...

Eventually full sun came out and while plenty blustery it warmed to the low teens.

And no race training occurred (was supposed to be Super G). Definitely a day to freeski...

 

[ChrisC]

Colorado Dads?

I bet he has a south-facing driveway... . . . #ColoradoDads #Colorado #DadLife | Dude Dad | Dude Dad · Original audio

I bet he has a south-facing driveway... . . . #ColoradoDads #Colorado #DadLife. Dude Dad · Original audio

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Totally have a south facing driveway. 5 bikes for 3 bike riders, etc... can't violate the secret society rules!

 

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Then again, today is much better...

 

[jamesdeluxe]

NOAA sez 12-18 inches by tomorrow evening.

 

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NOAA sez 12-18 inches by tomorrow evening.

Too low a forecast...

 

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Here's my best shot of a "Where's Waldo" theme.

Official am report was only 9" of new snow. But it was pounding at at least 2" per hour rate for hours. Eventually slowing to more like ~1" per hour in the afternoon. Of course that brought out big crowds and I70 skiers...

This group was very busy trying to open stuff today. Lots of Booms but none of the best stuff yet (probably this week though).

What dedicated Race Arenas are made for:

We need more ski days like today. My personal guess based on solidly knee deep in the woods was ~20" by 2pm for this storm so far. Temperatures were crazy with 1F in Nederland in the am, but only a couple miles away up shelf road it was 20F at the mountain. Huge inversion just above town, but on the way home the inversion had lowered so Nederland was in the 20's (and sunny) but only 4F at home on the flatlands.

 

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Snow stake cam about 12pm

 

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Thought I'd show the Snow stake history for how this current storm cycle is going. Different resort clear their stakes at different times. For Eldora they clear the web camera one at ~4:30pm each day. Gives you a good idea of truly fresh snow for the morning when you wake up.

Sun Jan 14 @ 7:20am. Can see the 14" mark if you look closely plus the camera angle, so probably ~12" only 90 minutes after their 9" snow report.

You can see the Jan 14th ~mid-day version above in the prior post.

Jan 14th 3:42pm

Today Monday Jan 15th repeat @ 8:30am just as they open. Already approx 16" since they closed yesterday and still snowing.

Unfortunately a couple of critical business meetings today for me. Plus it is currently -18F up there, breezy and the best terrain is still not open yet (though I guarantee it will open for the season in a couple days once avi danger settles down and patrol has time to ski cut, bomb, etc...).

For Reference, this is more typically what the stake actually looks like behind all that snow (from Friday). I'm told the orange goes to ~16" and the top of the metal oval is a bit more than 18" tall...