Lee Canyon was the first area I ever skied, during Christmas Week 1975. My father was from Maine and my mother from Idaho, and they decided to live in SoCal because they both hated snow. I first saw snow fall at college in New Jersey. Introduction to skiing at age 23 was a total fluke. A friend invited me along on his uncle's high roller junket to Las Vegas for New Year's 1976. The uncle was from Miami and his daughter wanted to see snow, so we all went out to Lee Canyon, got rentals and played around on a 100-foot handle tow for a couple of hours. This is the bunny hill formerly served by that handle tow.
Archives show both Bluebird and Sherwood chairs as far back as 1983, though I thought in 1975 that there was only one chair.
The Ponderosa lift is new this season and a local lady said it's helpful in keeping beginners off the two upper lifts.
Trails are Vegas-themed.
We found this one amusing.
I was fairly confident of conditions as I knew it had been hit by the same big storms as SoCal and Mammoth first week of February. I was hopeful that with elevation range 8,510-9,370 that Lee Canyon had been spared the 4 days of rain that plagued SoCal ski areas since then. We didn't start skiing until about 10:15 in case there was a melt freeze that needed to loosen up. But the groomers were all packed powder.
The upper lifts are about 700 vertical and the 5 groomed runs from them would get repetitive after awhile. So we ventured off the groomed to these drops skier's left of Bimbo.
I chose this one first, Pipeline, not too steep but narrow.
In the shade this too was all packed powder.
Next was Jacks, the liftline of the Sherwood chair:
This had more sun so a slight melt/freeze effect.
The area marked Kings and Queens on the map is all comfortably spaced intermediate pitch trees.
This would be ideal on powder days because the local clientele seems quite intermediate. From online booking and signs at the base, we got the strong impression that many visitors rent skis or snowboards. The inch of snow from Wednesday was still occasionally untouched.
Slot Alley is the last run after traversing right from Sherwood. Several people had trouble with its entry.
This lady fell and rolled, so Liz is waiting for her to come to rest.
Looking down, Slot Alley formed a fun natural halfpipe for amateurs such as myself.
Runout of Slot Alley with peek of the desert 6,000 feet below:
Off to skier's left is Lee Canyon's snowmaking reservoir.
This is probably adequate for those 5 upper groomers.
Here's another run in the trees.
With the shade the tree skiing was about 80% winter snow, very forgiving. This is the kind of skiing for which Mt. Waterman was long ago well known.
The lift service is all intermediate pitch. We do hear about skiers climbing above the lifts for steeper terrain.
You can do that for awhile but most of the top looks like sheer cliffs. The only skiable line from the top is barely visible at far left. The avalanche hazard coming off those cliffs is real, and caused a very unusual fatality in 2005. There are a lot of warning signs now. The slide paths appear aimed into two gullies somewhat distant from the lifts, so I wonder if some terrain was recontoured.
I skied 13,000 vertical by about 2:45.
Archives show both Bluebird and Sherwood chairs as far back as 1983, though I thought in 1975 that there was only one chair.
The Ponderosa lift is new this season and a local lady said it's helpful in keeping beginners off the two upper lifts.
Trails are Vegas-themed.
We found this one amusing.
I was fairly confident of conditions as I knew it had been hit by the same big storms as SoCal and Mammoth first week of February. I was hopeful that with elevation range 8,510-9,370 that Lee Canyon had been spared the 4 days of rain that plagued SoCal ski areas since then. We didn't start skiing until about 10:15 in case there was a melt freeze that needed to loosen up. But the groomers were all packed powder.
The upper lifts are about 700 vertical and the 5 groomed runs from them would get repetitive after awhile. So we ventured off the groomed to these drops skier's left of Bimbo.
I chose this one first, Pipeline, not too steep but narrow.
In the shade this too was all packed powder.
Next was Jacks, the liftline of the Sherwood chair:
This had more sun so a slight melt/freeze effect.
The area marked Kings and Queens on the map is all comfortably spaced intermediate pitch trees.
This would be ideal on powder days because the local clientele seems quite intermediate. From online booking and signs at the base, we got the strong impression that many visitors rent skis or snowboards. The inch of snow from Wednesday was still occasionally untouched.
Slot Alley is the last run after traversing right from Sherwood. Several people had trouble with its entry.
This lady fell and rolled, so Liz is waiting for her to come to rest.
Looking down, Slot Alley formed a fun natural halfpipe for amateurs such as myself.
Runout of Slot Alley with peek of the desert 6,000 feet below:
Off to skier's left is Lee Canyon's snowmaking reservoir.
This is probably adequate for those 5 upper groomers.
Here's another run in the trees.
With the shade the tree skiing was about 80% winter snow, very forgiving. This is the kind of skiing for which Mt. Waterman was long ago well known.
The lift service is all intermediate pitch. We do hear about skiers climbing above the lifts for steeper terrain.
You can do that for awhile but most of the top looks like sheer cliffs. The only skiable line from the top is barely visible at far left. The avalanche hazard coming off those cliffs is real, and caused a very unusual fatality in 2005. There are a lot of warning signs now. The slide paths appear aimed into two gullies somewhat distant from the lifts, so I wonder if some terrain was recontoured.
I skied 13,000 vertical by about 2:45.
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