Loveland, CO 04/03/15

For the past few days, there had been a fair amount of chatter about a storm that was supposed to hit the I-70 areas on Thursday with anywhere from six to ten inches of snow. I made plans to hit everyone's old-school favorite, Loveland, but the storm took a late turn and ended up dropping nine inches on Breckenridge and eight on Keystone, while the mountains along the divide -- Loveland, A-Basin, Winter Park -- only reported three or four.

Given the pricey day-ticket rates for the Vail Resorts, I stuck with my plan for Loveland and it turned out to be a good call with lots of first tracks and low crowds. The trick was to hit lines where the wind had pushed in more snow over the refrozen base (it had been really warm here until yesterday's storm); otherwise, you'd be hitting a scratchy bottom. On the upper mountain, it certainly felt like more than three or four inches and even though the sun was blazing, it was midwinter cold -- couldn't have gotten out of the teens.



Just Below Ptarmigan Roost:


Me on Perfect Bowl:




Tickler Gulch:


Zip Trail:


Above The Eisenhower Tunnel:


Looking west over the ridge:


I'm a big fan of Loveland: an anti-resort (still no high-speed lifts and no safety bars on any of the chairs) with a big convenience factor. Even though it's good-sized, you never get that industrial-tourism feel of the big mountains on the other side of the tunnel.

They're currently reporting 257 inches YTD -- isn't their average snowfall in the mid-300s?

Weird snowfall pattern from this one. Eldora picked up 11 inches and then Breck and Keystone were next highest... from an upslope storm. Not typical.

Loveland weather station says it warmed up to 26F... but not until 5:30pm after you were done. Next warm up starts tomorrow.

Nice see james going west in April: a good percentage call despite the aberrant 2014-15 season.

We may be in the area in 3 weeks as there isn't going to be much in the way of April skiing in California.

Loveland was at 88% of normal as of April 1. The West collectively was at 66%. :twisted:

EMSC":25w3qnf1 said:

That's a ways off still. Hopefully still worth while, but be aware that nearly all the big places are scheduled to shut down April 19th this year. WP goes to April 26th and then you are down to Loveland and Abasin.

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We can live with those 3 areas. I will inquire how much of Winter Park will be open. Perhaps EMSC could meet us for Loveland or Winter Park that weekend.

After being gone for a month there's no way I'll get out again until after April 12 and I'll be surprised if Mammoth is worth the 5 hour drive by then.

Tony Crocker":5uo6mnbe said:

We may be in the area in 3 weeks as there isn't going to be much in the way of April skiing in California.

Loveland was at 88% of normal as of April 1. The West collectively was at 66%. :twisted:

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While CO would be nice, it's not over in CA and it is April. But after the middle of April, Mammoth will most likely be the only lift-served skiing in CA.

OpenSnow was predicting 3-7" for Easter and 5-10" for Tuesday at Kirkwood where they are down to 3 chairs (2 of them are their best - Cornice and Wall). OpenSnow had better numbers for these storms for Mammoth, but no longer. The highest predictions are for long closed for season Mt. Shasta with 14-28" from Sat. night to Tues. and Badger Pass and Dodge Ridge with 10-18" on Tues. It would be nice to have anywhere close to normal base for these cold storms. The April 1 CA snowpack survey came in at 5% of historical average and for the first time in the 75 years they have records, there is no snow at 6,800' at Phillips (above turnoff to Sierra-at-Tahoe on US-50) where survey was observed by our governor.

Tony Crocker":s35b4s37 said:

Loveland was at 88% of normal as of April 1.

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On April 1, Loveland was at 255 (currently at 261). They're claiming a 31-year average of 422 -- that's 60% of normal, not 88. Are you calling BS on their annual stat, similar to when you recently referred to Stowe and MRG's "resort numbers"?
http://www.skiloveland.com/themountain/ ... stats.aspx

jamesdeluxe":21evv2gy said:

They're claiming a 31-year average of 422

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That includes months outside November-April, which is 349 based upon 39 years of data. The Continental Divide region of Colorado gets an unusual amount of snow outside those months by North American standards.

Thus 422 is quite believable, but it's quite irrelevant from a ski perspective. Yes Loveland opens in October but all on manmade. Loveland and A-Basin both have very slow track records in terms of getting the whole mountain open (average 59% and 57% open at Christmas). This tells me October natural snow is usually irrelevant. Both areas are highly skewed to favor late season. But Loveland closes first weekend of May, so I don't count May as I do for A-Basin, which usually remains open the whole month.

Tony Crocker":35kothma said:

That includes months outside November-April, which is 349 based upon 39 years of data.

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That's what I figured. In my original post above, I mentioned mid-300s off the top of my head, so I was surprised to see low-400s on their website.