Snow Valley 3/12/19

Beautiful day in the Socal sun.

I arrived at 1 pm. First time I've skied Snow Valley in .....15 years? Hard to say.

Very few folks were out, some kids on spring break. Virtually empty. I lapped the new high speed 6 person chairlift over and over. I'm guessing the vertical drop is about 800 feet at most. The run is over in about........5 minutes. You can't but help think: is that it? It's over already? I'm just thankful the old chairlift (low speed double) - is a thing of the past.

Chairs 4, 8, 9, and 10 seem to be defunct. It's not exactly been a lucrative time for this little "resort" over the past 7 years. This is undoubtedly the best snowpack they have seen since 2010 or 2011.

I took a trip back to Slide Peak. It was empty. I would describe the snow as a bit firm and simply the old socal "mashed potatoes."

The front side skied well on the groomers, very good packed powder with some of the main runs a mix of untracked (wetter) snow that required some leg muscle to the old "mashed potatoes." That's the thing about skiing SoCal -- after it snows and if there's some sun, everything becomes mashed potatoes.

Nevertheless, a beautiful day on the mountain. Nice to get away from the computer screen for a few hours.
 

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Not sure I've ever even seen a trail map for Snow Valley so I looked it up.

Chairs 8 & 9 are shown on it, but there are no Chairs 4 or 10 shown on the current map. Also find it interesting that despite the tall and vertical looking nature of the trail map the max vertical looks to be just over 1,000 feet?
 
They're there alright! I think these chairlifts were quite necessary when the snowpack was more reliable 20-30 years ago and there were frankly a lot more people. The parking lot is massive -- and some days it would get quite full.

WIth the last 10 years being abysmal, they've really had to cut back on maintenance. They have one person scanning lift tickets for everyone on the hill (maybe this was just midweek?). It's really just a small little ski hill that caters to the folks who don't need the more consistent base of Big Bear or the off-piste / out of bounds at Baldy.

Yes.....the vertical drop is quite small. Mostly families.....old dudes skiing in fiberglass hexcel / k2 skis from the 70's , wearing jeans. Nary a chance you'll bump into a professional skier here. Lots of old Yan lifts.

I did notice that they didn't even include foot/ski rests on the new high speed 6 pack. Not exactly the heated bubble chair at banff sunshine....
 

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Chairs 8 and 9 are still operational. Chairs 4, 5 and 10 are not.

Chair 9 has been running on select days this season.
 
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