Mt Baldy (So Cal) - Dec 30 2004 - report

Baldy was a mixed bag today.

Good: Lots of nice powder, beautiful scenery, blue bird day, expert runs from chair 1 open to the parking lot

Bad: Never opened chairs 3 and 4 (the bulk of the area), ticket line was a 30 minute wait and the lift line initially was an hour and 45 minute wait!! Lift lines after that were around 30 minutes each.

I've never seen so many people at Baldy, ever. And to top it off, they never managed to get chairs 3 or 4 running. Urrg!! Everbody was packed on to either the beginner run and chair or the base chair. Both had long waits all day.

Baldy REALLY needs a high speed quad. I know this is a pipe dream, but maybe if they have a good season this year, they'll at least do SOMETHING. But, I won't get excited because Baldy has NEVER added, updated, or revamped ANYTHING while I've know of it. It was fine when they weren't very well known. Now, with the internet, everybody seems to know about Baldy. This would be fine if they could handle the crowds but they can't.

Anyways, I took some pics to show you how much of a tease today was. I only managed to get in 2 runs the entire time I was there (8:45 - 1:30).
I have to go back when all the college and high school students are done with their vacations. I forgot about that. I totaly expected it to be empty today. Boy was I wrong!

I was also at Baldy today. Baldy is rarely predictable , especially if you're trying to nail a powder day. All of the factors seemed to be there for today: 3 feet new snow, area closed previous 2 days, storm ended last night and the road wasn't buried, so the chances of a prompt opening looked good.

The first rule of Baldy powder days is get there early. This minimizes the chances of being delayed by a bozo driver on the snowy or icy (today) hairpin turns and ensures you getting up chair 1 soon after it opens. I arrived 7:45, the ticket window opened a bit after 8:00 and I loaded chair 1 8:30. This is my usual plan and I normally can rack up freshies on Thunder for a couple of hours as the logjam at the bottom clears slowly. When the crowd gets to Thunder, I go back down and ski chair 1.

As pnoom points out, that didn't work today. The lift cable on Thunder iced over and derailed when they tried to start it. So the only real skiing was on chair 1 and you had to merge into the same liftline as the late arrivals. I have seen chair 1 like that a few times back in the 1980's, but not in the last 15 years. Interestingly the chair 1 liftie used the same policy I remember from the 1980's, allowing a singles line for those skiing down for a couple of hours. This limited my wait for the 2nd thru 4th runs to around 20 minutes. Following the philosophy that "all's fair on powder days" I did manage 8 runs on chair 1 and a total of 12,500 vertical for the day. I also went over 1 million vertical lifetime at Baldy today.

The snow could barely be called powder. It was dense but not cement-like at all, and almost skied like packed powder even in the trees. This surface holds up nicely even after it's been skied on (as opposed to the thrashed and setup snow you often get after the first day), and I may return for an encore (presumably with all lifts running) over the weekend. There were some icy spots in wind-exposed areas, but they could be easily avoided.

The morning was indeed great for pics, especially after I ran into my friend Garry Klassen on the 3rd run. We hiked about 300 vertical up chair 4 to ski Holcumac at 10AM before the sun damaged its direct south exposure. After lunch I alternated chairs 1 & 2, hoping that Thunder would open eventually. By 2PM the mountain was under fog. When I reached the top of chair 1 at 3PM and was told Thunder wasn't open, I decided to do the hike up chair 4 again, ski one last untracked run down to the back of the parking lot and get away before a potential traffic jam with the full lot and all the sightseers.

I later found out on Baldy's website that Thunder opened at 3:30. But I probably did beat some traffic, and with the lift screwup Baldy will let you buy a ticket later this season for half price if you bring today's ticket with you.

I disagree on the high speed quad. Baldy does not need more skier density with its steep terrain, variable exposures and erratic snowpack. Chair 1 is only a mess when Thunder is closed. Except for beginners downloading at the end of the day, but I have little sympathy as Baldy is so unsuitable for beginners. If they ever build Stockton Flats, that will relieve the liftlines on Thunder.

Last February I did 31K on Baldy on a Saturday with conditions quite similar to today's.

Yeah, the powder was definitely a little thick, but still nice on steep trails like the ones to the parking lot, although I've seen much better at Baldy (even in months like April).

A high speed quad would probably ruin Baldy's rustic feel, but I'm just afraid that Thursday might repeat itself. I'd gladly trade in the rustic feel for shorter than 2 hour lift lines. I'm just concerned that they'll get too popular for their facilities to handle. Maybe just a regular quad lift would be a better choice or even just speeding up their existing double. Anyways, I'm probably going back to get my half off ticket on Saturday (tomorrow) or Sunday so I'll see if it's the same deal. I think tomorrow morning at Baldy will be a little bit less crowded and I'll finally get to ride Thunder and Chair 4.

I am going tomorrow also.

The historical trend is that Baldy is noticeably LESS crowded than in late 1970's and early 1980's. The predominance of snowboarding in SoCal will keep it that way (see Taos snowboard ban discussion).

Chair 1 has to run slowly because of the sightseers. You can tell the difference because they run Thunder much faster.

Would it help if chair 1 were a triple or quad? Yes, but surely we want them to spend any extra $ they make to build the Stockton Flats chair.