China Peak is about as under the radar as a ski area can be in California considering it has 1,679 vertical feet and 1,200 acres from a base at 7,030 feet. The reason is the slow and winding access Route 168, which takes nearly 2 hours from Fresno. Thus the clientele is nearly all Fresno locals.
China Peak was on its last legs after the severely dry January/February, but got 3-4 feet of snow early in the week and announced opening for Thursday.
I knew about that road as I had been to Huntington Lake twice in the late 1980's, so I drove halfway up to Shaver Lake on Wednesday afternoon. At 7:30AM there were three inches of new fluffy snow at 5,500 feet and it was still snowing.
There was a slick downgrade just past Shaver Lake and a couple of us slid into the snowbank and the guy behind me sideswiped my left quarter panel, breaking a taillight.
This will be examined tomorrow, but we were stopped for about 10 minutes. I drove very conservatively the rest of the way up the hill.
Outside the ticket office was this dog, part Great Pyrenee (thus pic taken for Liz) and part Anatolian sheepdog.
I was on the mountain by 9:30AM. Chairs 1, 2, 4 and 6 were running. First time at the area with no local guidance in bad weather I stuck with the top-to-bottom chair 1 for my first 6 runs though it was probably a 12 minute ride over a mile long.
My first run I was too tempted by this view NW over Huntington Lake.
There's a snowboarder maybe 100 feet below me struggling to get up after falling. That first 500 vertical pitch was deep and awesome. It flattened out to the Buckhorn hut by the base of chair 2 and top of chair 4. I continued down the intermediate Tollhouse run, which was groomed under the overnight snow, followed by the very gradual Academy run back to the base.
I chose to make my next five runs fairly close to chair 1 and/or the nearby closed chair 3. Mainstream is the lowest pitch looker's right of these lifts.
I never skied that, as I dropped into the powder higher up, into areas like these.
The snow stopped about 10AM but resumed about 11:30AM and continued the rest of the day.
There were fall lines through nicely spaced trees diagonally under the upper third of the lift, but they paralleled my first run, ending at Buckhorn/chair 2. I went that way on my 7th and 8th runs and then took a run each time on chair 2. Chair 2 serves the upper half of vertical, and in retrospect I should have hit that earlier for more efficient powder. But it was past noon when I first rode chair 2 and the runs were well chopped by then. I got some powder in the trees near Tamarack and Red Fir.
Around 1PM I passed above the main day lodge on the way to chair 1.
People could get limited food in there but they had to take it outside to eat.
On my final run I pushed to far skier's right for the last few untracked turns.
It's hard to tell from the pics that the terrain has a lot of rollovers, some of which are buried boulders. Whenever I saw lumps in the snow I skied between them. When I reached a rough exit traverse there were some deep holes in the snowpack as there was little base below what fell in the past week.
That exit traverse was a slog and my lower back was fatigued from the variable skiing. As the day wore on, the chopped snow got into heavier layers that could be a lot of work. It was a mix of those and some really nice powder turns. So I called it a day about 2:35PM with 16,500 vertical, about 10K of powder. That was by far the most lift served powder I skied this season.
China Peak was an outlier being open on Thursday, and I'm sure they were pleased with the result. It could have been empty with most people staying home or it could have been a zoo with all the big places closed. Instead it was a moderate crowd, most of the triple or quad chairs going up occupied between 10AM and noon, but only 1 or 2 people per chair and never more than 3-5 people at the bottom waiting to get on.
As I left I chatted with an employee, who said overall it was typical for a midweek powder day and that most of the people there were local. The only unusual aspect is that there were a lot of kids because the schools were closed. She suspected that Saturday would be very busy if they were still open. I told her that China Peak was my 241st ski area. I did not tell her that Val Thorens was the new ski area I had expected to be adding to my list this week.
Sign on the bridge to the parking lot:
It was easy to comply. Every chair I rode single, ate some jerky on the lift and peed in the woods.
I was on the road at 3PM and a bit paranoid about the downhill drive in view of what happened in the morning. But the daytime snowfall of 4-6 inches was only at higher elevation. There was no snow on the road from well above Shaver Lake and the road was actually dry below 4,500 feet.
I got down to Hwy 99 and a dinner break about 5PM. I then reserved a hotel in Sonora, planning to ski Friday at Dodge Ridge, which had been open daily since Tuesday. I heard about the governor's lockdown announcement about half an hour before reaching Sonora. Dodge Ridge updated its website at 5:30, saying "on hold, call before coming." I called after 8AM and was told by a live person that Dodge Ridge was closing. China Peak operated Friday but is now closed.
China Peak was on its last legs after the severely dry January/February, but got 3-4 feet of snow early in the week and announced opening for Thursday.
I knew about that road as I had been to Huntington Lake twice in the late 1980's, so I drove halfway up to Shaver Lake on Wednesday afternoon. At 7:30AM there were three inches of new fluffy snow at 5,500 feet and it was still snowing.
There was a slick downgrade just past Shaver Lake and a couple of us slid into the snowbank and the guy behind me sideswiped my left quarter panel, breaking a taillight.
This will be examined tomorrow, but we were stopped for about 10 minutes. I drove very conservatively the rest of the way up the hill.
Outside the ticket office was this dog, part Great Pyrenee (thus pic taken for Liz) and part Anatolian sheepdog.
I was on the mountain by 9:30AM. Chairs 1, 2, 4 and 6 were running. First time at the area with no local guidance in bad weather I stuck with the top-to-bottom chair 1 for my first 6 runs though it was probably a 12 minute ride over a mile long.
My first run I was too tempted by this view NW over Huntington Lake.
There's a snowboarder maybe 100 feet below me struggling to get up after falling. That first 500 vertical pitch was deep and awesome. It flattened out to the Buckhorn hut by the base of chair 2 and top of chair 4. I continued down the intermediate Tollhouse run, which was groomed under the overnight snow, followed by the very gradual Academy run back to the base.
I chose to make my next five runs fairly close to chair 1 and/or the nearby closed chair 3. Mainstream is the lowest pitch looker's right of these lifts.
I never skied that, as I dropped into the powder higher up, into areas like these.
The snow stopped about 10AM but resumed about 11:30AM and continued the rest of the day.
There were fall lines through nicely spaced trees diagonally under the upper third of the lift, but they paralleled my first run, ending at Buckhorn/chair 2. I went that way on my 7th and 8th runs and then took a run each time on chair 2. Chair 2 serves the upper half of vertical, and in retrospect I should have hit that earlier for more efficient powder. But it was past noon when I first rode chair 2 and the runs were well chopped by then. I got some powder in the trees near Tamarack and Red Fir.
Around 1PM I passed above the main day lodge on the way to chair 1.
People could get limited food in there but they had to take it outside to eat.
On my final run I pushed to far skier's right for the last few untracked turns.
It's hard to tell from the pics that the terrain has a lot of rollovers, some of which are buried boulders. Whenever I saw lumps in the snow I skied between them. When I reached a rough exit traverse there were some deep holes in the snowpack as there was little base below what fell in the past week.
That exit traverse was a slog and my lower back was fatigued from the variable skiing. As the day wore on, the chopped snow got into heavier layers that could be a lot of work. It was a mix of those and some really nice powder turns. So I called it a day about 2:35PM with 16,500 vertical, about 10K of powder. That was by far the most lift served powder I skied this season.
China Peak was an outlier being open on Thursday, and I'm sure they were pleased with the result. It could have been empty with most people staying home or it could have been a zoo with all the big places closed. Instead it was a moderate crowd, most of the triple or quad chairs going up occupied between 10AM and noon, but only 1 or 2 people per chair and never more than 3-5 people at the bottom waiting to get on.
As I left I chatted with an employee, who said overall it was typical for a midweek powder day and that most of the people there were local. The only unusual aspect is that there were a lot of kids because the schools were closed. She suspected that Saturday would be very busy if they were still open. I told her that China Peak was my 241st ski area. I did not tell her that Val Thorens was the new ski area I had expected to be adding to my list this week.
Sign on the bridge to the parking lot:
It was easy to comply. Every chair I rode single, ate some jerky on the lift and peed in the woods.
I was on the road at 3PM and a bit paranoid about the downhill drive in view of what happened in the morning. But the daytime snowfall of 4-6 inches was only at higher elevation. There was no snow on the road from well above Shaver Lake and the road was actually dry below 4,500 feet.
I got down to Hwy 99 and a dinner break about 5PM. I then reserved a hotel in Sonora, planning to ski Friday at Dodge Ridge, which had been open daily since Tuesday. I heard about the governor's lockdown announcement about half an hour before reaching Sonora. Dodge Ridge updated its website at 5:30, saying "on hold, call before coming." I called after 8AM and was told by a live person that Dodge Ridge was closing. China Peak operated Friday but is now closed.
As I took Liz to Burbank airport Wednesday, I asked her, "If not for your broken shoulder, would you be going with me to ski the next two days?" "Absolutely!" she replied. Some of us are ski nutcases, but I'm very lucky to have found a compatible nutcase!tseeb":1xguzvsg said:
