I arrived at 7:35AM and saw chair 1 loading already. I later found out that ticket sales started at 7:10. They are also using that old QMC tram from June Mt. as an extra window. So it's running more smoothly this year for early arrivals on busy days. But if you show up at 9AM it will still take an hour to get through tickets and chair 1.
Baldy storms are wildly unpredictable, even with an informed report like Aukai's for the previous day. There was quite a bit of wind overnight so much of the snow was windpack instead of powder. And in the morning the wind was blowing from the desert side instead of the prevailing direction up the Notch. So the usual north facing deep powder pockets like Emile's trees and Robin's trees were windpacked. Here's a snowboarder on Liftline early on:
The best powder was on the opposite aspect, drops off the Fire Road like Clementine's, Herb's, Andy's. Here's Andy's at right and an unnamed line at left that had only one narrow clean exit into Robin's, which I fortunately found.
Based on Aukai's and other comments I tried the Goldridge trees:
I have generally not been impressed as the skiable lines in there seem short. I gave it 3 tries today and finally found a better line on my last Thunder run at 4PM.
With the SW aspects off the Fire Road being good, I hoped for the same in South Bowl but it was more packed. Then I tried Bill's Bowl, one of Garry's favored lines:
It was softer than South Bowl, and after taking this pic up the run I cleverly skied a smooth line below only to discover that I was below the South Bowl traverse, requiring 10 minutes of grunt work to get back to it.
With the new snow (reported 12-18 since Friday night) it was a busier day than 2 weeks ago. There were always a few people in line at Thunder, and by ~9:45 the line reached the end of the maze. I still got 10 Thunder runs in before bailing at 10:45.
Waiting to take chair 2 back to the Notch I ran into Jojo O'Brien. Chair 4 had opened by 9AM or so, but it's wind and sun exposed so I had remained on Thunder. But I thought it would be worth it go up 4 to check out Eric's. Jojo had heard about Eric's and was eager to check it out until I stepped over ~20 feet of mixed snow and rock to get to the line I wanted. But we were greeted with this pristine view so I knew I had made the right call:
Eric's rocked today, smooth cream cheese for 1,000+ vertical of wide open and nearly untracked ~30 degree slope. So a few pics of JoJo skiing it:
Upon returning to the Notch ~12:15 the line on chair 4 was considerable, so we took a couple runs down chair 1. First a chute between Windslab and Nightmare with chopped powder, then similar snow on Morgan's. I latter found out that Thunder was down from ~noon to 1PM, which explained larger than usual lines on chairs 1 and 4. We returned to Eric's about 2PM. Snow was a bit heavier this time but we traversed left and Jojo found some lighter powder tracks lower down (second pic below).
Jojo took another run down and called it a day while I grabbed a snack at the Notch, hearing a huge roar from the bar when the US scored that hockey goal with 15 seconds left in regulation. But I have my priorities and headed out beyond Bentley's for some more variable but untracked snow:
Below was a narrow choke to squeak through (no pic, I was concentrated on getting body and skis through intact).
I returned to Thunder after 3PM, found the north aspect of South Bowl the same variable mix of hard glaze, windpack and powder as 2 weeks ago. The "Baldy cloud" did not move into the ski area today but made for a scenic late afternoon view:
Then a run down Skyline/Tube, the latter in pretty good shape:
Background Holcumac at left, top of chair 2 and Notch at right.
After that last run in Goldridge trees I skied to the bottom via a safer variant of Bentley's. An excellent day, 23,900, 10K of varied powder.
The more packed snow of this storm will result in rapid corn development, with mostly smooth packed powder on the north exposures. This week should ski much better than March 2005, when the churned and sunbaked powder made off-piste skiing very difficult for awhile.
Baldy storms are wildly unpredictable, even with an informed report like Aukai's for the previous day. There was quite a bit of wind overnight so much of the snow was windpack instead of powder. And in the morning the wind was blowing from the desert side instead of the prevailing direction up the Notch. So the usual north facing deep powder pockets like Emile's trees and Robin's trees were windpacked. Here's a snowboarder on Liftline early on:
The best powder was on the opposite aspect, drops off the Fire Road like Clementine's, Herb's, Andy's. Here's Andy's at right and an unnamed line at left that had only one narrow clean exit into Robin's, which I fortunately found.
Based on Aukai's and other comments I tried the Goldridge trees:
I have generally not been impressed as the skiable lines in there seem short. I gave it 3 tries today and finally found a better line on my last Thunder run at 4PM.
With the SW aspects off the Fire Road being good, I hoped for the same in South Bowl but it was more packed. Then I tried Bill's Bowl, one of Garry's favored lines:
It was softer than South Bowl, and after taking this pic up the run I cleverly skied a smooth line below only to discover that I was below the South Bowl traverse, requiring 10 minutes of grunt work to get back to it.
With the new snow (reported 12-18 since Friday night) it was a busier day than 2 weeks ago. There were always a few people in line at Thunder, and by ~9:45 the line reached the end of the maze. I still got 10 Thunder runs in before bailing at 10:45.
Waiting to take chair 2 back to the Notch I ran into Jojo O'Brien. Chair 4 had opened by 9AM or so, but it's wind and sun exposed so I had remained on Thunder. But I thought it would be worth it go up 4 to check out Eric's. Jojo had heard about Eric's and was eager to check it out until I stepped over ~20 feet of mixed snow and rock to get to the line I wanted. But we were greeted with this pristine view so I knew I had made the right call:
Eric's rocked today, smooth cream cheese for 1,000+ vertical of wide open and nearly untracked ~30 degree slope. So a few pics of JoJo skiing it:
Upon returning to the Notch ~12:15 the line on chair 4 was considerable, so we took a couple runs down chair 1. First a chute between Windslab and Nightmare with chopped powder, then similar snow on Morgan's. I latter found out that Thunder was down from ~noon to 1PM, which explained larger than usual lines on chairs 1 and 4. We returned to Eric's about 2PM. Snow was a bit heavier this time but we traversed left and Jojo found some lighter powder tracks lower down (second pic below).
Jojo took another run down and called it a day while I grabbed a snack at the Notch, hearing a huge roar from the bar when the US scored that hockey goal with 15 seconds left in regulation. But I have my priorities and headed out beyond Bentley's for some more variable but untracked snow:
Below was a narrow choke to squeak through (no pic, I was concentrated on getting body and skis through intact).
I returned to Thunder after 3PM, found the north aspect of South Bowl the same variable mix of hard glaze, windpack and powder as 2 weeks ago. The "Baldy cloud" did not move into the ski area today but made for a scenic late afternoon view:
Then a run down Skyline/Tube, the latter in pretty good shape:
Background Holcumac at left, top of chair 2 and Notch at right.
After that last run in Goldridge trees I skied to the bottom via a safer variant of Bentley's. An excellent day, 23,900, 10K of varied powder.
The more packed snow of this storm will result in rapid corn development, with mostly smooth packed powder on the north exposures. This week should ski much better than March 2005, when the churned and sunbaked powder made off-piste skiing very difficult for awhile.
