EMSC
Well-known member
Not nearly as good as expected.
After a cold and snowy week that brought 18"+ to Abasin I had expected a lot of soft and fun conditions all over the mountain. Especially on a day with temps at 10F to start and only 25F at the end of the day. Instead the cold temps locked the snow up like concrete off the groomers, especially first thing in the morning. While one could generously describe things as 'chalky' it was definitely not even that good on most of the hill for the first couple hours. You could find patches of untracked snow from the storms near trees in places like the Beavers, but that was linking 2-3 turns at a time, stop link a few more, stop... to avoid the super hard surface everywhere anyone had previously skied. Very weird. After attempts on Pali, Beavers, Zuma we stuck to a few groomers which were skiing very nicely and easy to carve. But I don't go to ABasin for groomers of course.
After an early lunch to see if the sun would help at all we then attempted the big terrain. I figured at the least with a steady stream of skiers that there might form some soft snow just from the chalky getting layers scraped off and loosening the small chunky bits. Not sure which was true but the snow in North pole was much, much better once down in. On the other hand, I can't recall a normal snow year with worse entries to the various north pole chutes. 1st notch is closed, 2nd notch has about the least snow up top ever so, required down hike, little north pole is scraped literally bare at this point. with a few crazy enough to slide down the dirt and small rocks. Main North Pole entry is by far the best, but even that is a series of small turns avoiding rocks for far longer than I can recall outside of bad snow years (which this one isn't).
Anyway, like a few weeks ago, couple laps, then couple laps in Steep Gullies which was decent skiers left (wind blows it in and rock ridglines protect from sun) and occasionally icy if straying to skiers right side of the gullies.
I certainly didn't need to worry about falling asleep last night. And thank goodness the best terrain 'saved' the ski day for me. Would have been so disappointed to burn a day off my pass at the Basin if I was stuck on groomers the rest of the day, in spite of the fact they were skiing quite well.
Part of the Georgetown herd
Lots of tracks on lots of big lines all over the Loveland pass area...
This pic makes Pali look way softer than it actually was
Interesting homemade ski poles. There is a ~1.5 inch spike on the bottom of the round knob (Zuma lift line)
North Pole:
This pic somehow makes the wind look less than it was. It was roaring on the hike up. My son was not a fan, lol. Probably his first ever hikes in such windy conditions.
I would have tried 2nd notch, but the down-hike line was far too bothersome to wait.
Almost down far enough to just ski...
Back to the steep gullies:
After a cold and snowy week that brought 18"+ to Abasin I had expected a lot of soft and fun conditions all over the mountain. Especially on a day with temps at 10F to start and only 25F at the end of the day. Instead the cold temps locked the snow up like concrete off the groomers, especially first thing in the morning. While one could generously describe things as 'chalky' it was definitely not even that good on most of the hill for the first couple hours. You could find patches of untracked snow from the storms near trees in places like the Beavers, but that was linking 2-3 turns at a time, stop link a few more, stop... to avoid the super hard surface everywhere anyone had previously skied. Very weird. After attempts on Pali, Beavers, Zuma we stuck to a few groomers which were skiing very nicely and easy to carve. But I don't go to ABasin for groomers of course.
After an early lunch to see if the sun would help at all we then attempted the big terrain. I figured at the least with a steady stream of skiers that there might form some soft snow just from the chalky getting layers scraped off and loosening the small chunky bits. Not sure which was true but the snow in North pole was much, much better once down in. On the other hand, I can't recall a normal snow year with worse entries to the various north pole chutes. 1st notch is closed, 2nd notch has about the least snow up top ever so, required down hike, little north pole is scraped literally bare at this point. with a few crazy enough to slide down the dirt and small rocks. Main North Pole entry is by far the best, but even that is a series of small turns avoiding rocks for far longer than I can recall outside of bad snow years (which this one isn't).
Anyway, like a few weeks ago, couple laps, then couple laps in Steep Gullies which was decent skiers left (wind blows it in and rock ridglines protect from sun) and occasionally icy if straying to skiers right side of the gullies.
I certainly didn't need to worry about falling asleep last night. And thank goodness the best terrain 'saved' the ski day for me. Would have been so disappointed to burn a day off my pass at the Basin if I was stuck on groomers the rest of the day, in spite of the fact they were skiing quite well.
Part of the Georgetown herd
Lots of tracks on lots of big lines all over the Loveland pass area...
This pic makes Pali look way softer than it actually was
Interesting homemade ski poles. There is a ~1.5 inch spike on the bottom of the round knob (Zuma lift line)
North Pole:
This pic somehow makes the wind look less than it was. It was roaring on the hike up. My son was not a fan, lol. Probably his first ever hikes in such windy conditions.
I would have tried 2nd notch, but the down-hike line was far too bothersome to wait.
Almost down far enough to just ski...
Back to the steep gullies:
for the honesty. I thought that conditions were always perfect in Colorado!