Skiace
Member
So the weather didn't work out the way it was initially foretasted (and as I had hoped). Instead of more snow on Saturday and Saturday night, it was pretty much clear yesterday. I had to work so today was my day to try to clean up the leftovers. Driving up, there was heavy rain in the morning in Upland/Claremont, but that didn't translate to much precipitation on the hill at all. There were minor flurries all day, with trace accumulation if any. I pulled into the parking lot at 7:15, and got a ticket very fast. (The Sport Chalet pre-paid vouchers will let you cut the ticket line!) I have basicly zero action shots from today, as all my friends were either in Mammoth this weekend or decided to go to Big Bear today instead (dumbasses).
Here's Bentley's (I think) on my first ride up Chair 1 at about 7:50am. There's a cloud settled on the mountain and it pretty much stayed there all day.
When I got down to Thunder a few minutes past 8, there were 5 people there (sweet I get 3rd chair!). Unfortunately, it took the lifties about half an hour to knock the ice off the bullwheel and get things cranking. Still, skiing by 8:30 isn't bad at all by Baldy standards.
For the first run I figured I'd just charge Emiles/the chair line, but it was pretty well tracked out from Saturday. Still good skiing though, as Baldy can only generate so much traffic in one day. Second run I headed out to South bowl, which I eventually lapped 4 times. There were still a lot of fresh tracks to be had over there, and I was surprised at how few people I saw heading out there. The snow quality was very good by Baldy standards. It was not as heavy/wet as the day I had last year, but every bit as good as Mammoth was the 17th/18th of December this season. Coverage was also just fine; the visibility was good enough to easily dodge the stumps/logs/occasional rock that I found.
Self-portrait at the start of lap #2 in South Bowl:
I took two other runs off Thunder in the morning besides the first and the South Bowl laps. One was the trees skier's right of the chair line (I don't recall the name, they drain into Toilet Bowl I think.) The snow was similar here to South Bowl, but with more tracks and some weaker coverage.
I did one of the runs that drops off the fire road, but snow was thinner and with a little subsurface, so I went back to South Bowl. By around 11:30 (after plenty of chair stoppages) the lines on both 2 and 3 were quite long, so I took the high fire road around to the notch. Chair 4 had a long line up and was still being cleaned of ice, so I headed out the traverse to ski a few lines off Chair 1. Bentley's and the other shots in that general area were very good, similar to South Bowl but with perhaps a few more tracks. I did two laps over there since there was not much of a line at the bottom and the skiing was good. Here's a shot from the chair during those laps.
After that I headed over to Chair 4. Apparently it never opened yesterday, so there were fresh tracks to be had. Unfortunately, that stuff was almost completely burned off before this storm so coverage was marginal. I took one run down the trees skier's right of the chair, and wasn't all that impressed. Here's a view of Thunder from the bottom of Chair 4. This is about the most the clouds lifted all day (it was too foggy to ever get this perspective from further up the lift).
The next lap I figured I'd take a shot at Holcemac (sp?) however I missed it and ended up in Eric's and thus at the parking lot (I blame the fog!) Whoops. I had been cold all morning anyway, so I grabbed an extra layer from the car on my way back to the lift. Next lap up I talked to some guys that had seen me coming out of Erics and wanted to find their way to Holcemac, so that's where we headed. The snow in both of those runs was similar. It had clearly gotten a little baked the day before (though not much) and there was a refrozen subsurface on the more south-facing aspects of both drainages. However, the more favorably facing pitches lacked the subsurface, and since it was consistent and untracked it skied great on my big Gotamas. Here's Holcemac about 2/3rd's of the way down.
After those laps I saw the line at 4 was still very long, and decided to take another lap out towards Nightmare etc. By this point it was nearly 3pm so that was all pretty well tracked out, and I was feeling quite satisfied on the day, so I called it. 18,000 vert on the day, nearly all of it powder, and zero core-shots on the Gotamas! And now for all you Utards etc, I finnished the day in a manner only SoCal skiers can: with a 4x4 from In-N-Out on the way home.
Here's Bentley's (I think) on my first ride up Chair 1 at about 7:50am. There's a cloud settled on the mountain and it pretty much stayed there all day.
When I got down to Thunder a few minutes past 8, there were 5 people there (sweet I get 3rd chair!). Unfortunately, it took the lifties about half an hour to knock the ice off the bullwheel and get things cranking. Still, skiing by 8:30 isn't bad at all by Baldy standards.
For the first run I figured I'd just charge Emiles/the chair line, but it was pretty well tracked out from Saturday. Still good skiing though, as Baldy can only generate so much traffic in one day. Second run I headed out to South bowl, which I eventually lapped 4 times. There were still a lot of fresh tracks to be had over there, and I was surprised at how few people I saw heading out there. The snow quality was very good by Baldy standards. It was not as heavy/wet as the day I had last year, but every bit as good as Mammoth was the 17th/18th of December this season. Coverage was also just fine; the visibility was good enough to easily dodge the stumps/logs/occasional rock that I found.
Self-portrait at the start of lap #2 in South Bowl:
I took two other runs off Thunder in the morning besides the first and the South Bowl laps. One was the trees skier's right of the chair line (I don't recall the name, they drain into Toilet Bowl I think.) The snow was similar here to South Bowl, but with more tracks and some weaker coverage.
I did one of the runs that drops off the fire road, but snow was thinner and with a little subsurface, so I went back to South Bowl. By around 11:30 (after plenty of chair stoppages) the lines on both 2 and 3 were quite long, so I took the high fire road around to the notch. Chair 4 had a long line up and was still being cleaned of ice, so I headed out the traverse to ski a few lines off Chair 1. Bentley's and the other shots in that general area were very good, similar to South Bowl but with perhaps a few more tracks. I did two laps over there since there was not much of a line at the bottom and the skiing was good. Here's a shot from the chair during those laps.
After that I headed over to Chair 4. Apparently it never opened yesterday, so there were fresh tracks to be had. Unfortunately, that stuff was almost completely burned off before this storm so coverage was marginal. I took one run down the trees skier's right of the chair, and wasn't all that impressed. Here's a view of Thunder from the bottom of Chair 4. This is about the most the clouds lifted all day (it was too foggy to ever get this perspective from further up the lift).
The next lap I figured I'd take a shot at Holcemac (sp?) however I missed it and ended up in Eric's and thus at the parking lot (I blame the fog!) Whoops. I had been cold all morning anyway, so I grabbed an extra layer from the car on my way back to the lift. Next lap up I talked to some guys that had seen me coming out of Erics and wanted to find their way to Holcemac, so that's where we headed. The snow in both of those runs was similar. It had clearly gotten a little baked the day before (though not much) and there was a refrozen subsurface on the more south-facing aspects of both drainages. However, the more favorably facing pitches lacked the subsurface, and since it was consistent and untracked it skied great on my big Gotamas. Here's Holcemac about 2/3rd's of the way down.
After those laps I saw the line at 4 was still very long, and decided to take another lap out towards Nightmare etc. By this point it was nearly 3pm so that was all pretty well tracked out, and I was feeling quite satisfied on the day, so I called it. 18,000 vert on the day, nearly all of it powder, and zero core-shots on the Gotamas! And now for all you Utards etc, I finnished the day in a manner only SoCal skiers can: with a 4x4 from In-N-Out on the way home.
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