Mt. Baldy 1/3/2011 (Vintage Baldy day)- w/Link to Pictures

Mt. Baldy was enjoyable today. I'm not sure how much new snow they had- the sign at the ticket booth said 12". Pushing my ski pole down for informal measurements in the Gold Ridge trees and in the South Bowl indicated about 18" to the old base. The snow wasn't Utah light, but it qualified as So. Cal. powder. Chains were required at the village I started skiing on Thunder Mtn. At about 9:30 AM. I spent most of my time in the Gold Ridge trees, and some in the So. Bowl. Liftlines were generally less than about 10 people (often only 2-4). I left a little after 2 PM, when chair 3 had stopped running for awhile. I skied down to the parking lot, traversing to the end of the cat track before dropping down. There was a lot of snow on the run, still powdery up top, then wetter by halfway or so. I did hit a couple rocks near the bottom. The weather was overcast w/light fog and some snow, clearing somewhat around 2 PM. I skied about 16K, much of it in powder, or (later), lightly tracked powder. Temps were in the low 30's, so I would expect the snow to set up fairly quickly (Esp. if the sun persisted after I left). I'll try to post pics later.

Link to pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Baldyskier/01032011MtBaldy#

BALDYSKIER YOU LEFT TOO EARLY!! Chair #4 opened up at around 2:40 or so. And it was SIIIIIIIIIIIICK.

I thought it was even better than enjoyable. I'd call it epic even......(for Baldy).

I got up to the lift at 8:15 (yes, had to put chains on my Tacoma 2WD).

Thunder was not yet open, only chair 1. Got to Thunder skiied two runs beneath the lift -- it was GOOD.

Then i started lapping South Bowl. Ithink I must have done it 8 times? Of course, first 4 were killer then had to work a little harder each time to find untracked.

Just non stop all day. HIt up nearly everything around Thunder (Robbins trees, Andy's, etc.) But South Bowl was the main attraction !

Bad part of the day: Chair #3 stopped for 30 minutes......I was on the lift and it sucked. The clouds parted while we were on the lift and it was gorgeous out. I envision purgatory might be similar.......

Let's see then went back the lodge and chair #4 was opening.

Did 4-5 runs right underneath chair lift #4 SIIIIIICk -what a way to end a day. Hootin and hollerin all day long.

Got on the chair lift down at 3:55 (the end is still rocky and I don't want to destroy my Volkyls...)

Incredibly easy drive home.

Baldy at it's best!!

Back to the grind boys!

I hope q reads this report. :stir: It just comes with the territory at Baldy. You make your best educated guess, sometimes you get days like last Thursday, sometimes like this. Overall it's well worth the effort.

Yes Tony I read it as I do almost every TR on here.

I just finished reading jojo's report on Baldy and how bad it was. Those queues remind me of the Lecht when I used to go every week except we had ice and queued 20mins to ski down in 2 minutes. It is all relative.

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And that is the quote you picked up on a Ski Scotland thread, not sure why.

So in the interests of fairness I will say that this TR reminds me very much of a day I had at the Lecht, midweek when there was nobody there and conditions were excellent.

jojo_obrien":24xjo8p2 said:

BALDYSKIER YOU LEFT TOO EARLY!! Chair #4 opened up at around 2:40 or so. And it was SIIIIIIIIIIIICK.

I thought it was even better than enjoyable. I'd call it epic even......(for Baldy).

Click to expand...

I was tricked! I was thinking this morning, "Man, 4 got tracked up awfully fast after not being open Monday." Sad thing is I would have had to bail before then, too, had I gone yesterday.

I assume you guys saw this:
http://firsttracksonline.com/News/2011/ ... -Mt-Baldy/

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

Admin -- did not see that...wow. He must have went off of Chair 4 down into Lytle Creek?

socalrider -- I'm thinking they didn't open up Chair #4 on Sunday because when they opened it up on Monday everything was completely untracked when they opened at 2:45. completely. solid knee to waste high everywhere. quite a few people had gone home by then.......

Below is a link to my pictures. Most are of the scenic variety, although they do give an idea of how nice the coverage was.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Baldyskier/01032011MtBaldy#

Great photos, but I'm a little surprised you stopped long enough to shoot 130 of them.

SoCal Rider":11aka4fu said:

Great photos, but I'm a little surprised you stopped long enough to shoot 130 of them.

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I didn't really stop that much. I took quite a few from the lift. Sometimes I took multiple shots at a time, including a lot of the ones with the sun shining. By the time the sun broke through the Thunder Mountain lift was down and I had already decided to head home. When the sun broke out, I grabbed a bunch of shots.