Days 50-55 for my season included everything from boredom to some fresh snow, to perfect corn before culminating in the best powder day of the year. Yeah, April's a roller coaster!
The weekend of April 4-5 I just couldn't get excited about. The weather was sunny but chilly and breezy, which meant that things were taking forever to soften and I really didn't have the patience to wait. It was also so empty that it was kind of depressing as the snow on south-facing aspects across the street had nearly disappeared.
It was the last weekend that my Serbian friends were in town, but that wasn't enough to keep me in the canyon past 1 p.m. either day. On Saturday I tooled around on Sunnyside with them and their son Sava, now barely 4 years old, and shot some video that Google automatically edited into this short clip:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNYJTZ8OJHQ[/video]
Then, on the 9th a 10-inch snowstorm reinvigorated my affection for what remains of the ski season. It fell as dense, almost graupel-like snow that kept you off the bottom nearly all of the time. The run of the morning was Armpit, which was deep, untracked and absolutely consistent. You could drop it at warp speed with nary a care in the world. I reluctantly left at 11:30 in time to make a 1 p.m. appointment for work.
I was thus in a far better mood when the weekend of the 11th and 12th arrived. Under sunshine and warm temperatures, the morning's hardpack quickly evolved into the most perfect corn that one could hope for.
We reveled in the spring weather, even taking the opportunity to picnic lunch off the Summer Road.
Corn is fun and all, but it's no true substitute for powder. That's what made today so special.
19" of new fell between closing yesterday and opening today, and it was up to 22" and still coming down hard when I left at noon to return to work.
It was the biggest overnight snowfall of the year, but most locals have apparently already given up on the season. The 9:15 a.m. opening time came and went with little happening, yet the pre-opening line never grew beyond the modest maze set up by the lifties. It wasn't until 9:45 or so before we finally got to board, but boy, oh boy was it worth the wait!
With Sugarloaf and Sunnyside both closed for an unspecified reason (given their proximity to one another I suspect it was power), and Backside and Ballroom/Baldy Shoulder off limits we were really hemmed in to just a fraction of the available landscape, but with so few people there today it truly didn't matter. We were getting untracked face shots on every freakin' turn right up until I left at noon. Today was the best day of the year, bar none.
The weekend of April 4-5 I just couldn't get excited about. The weather was sunny but chilly and breezy, which meant that things were taking forever to soften and I really didn't have the patience to wait. It was also so empty that it was kind of depressing as the snow on south-facing aspects across the street had nearly disappeared.
It was the last weekend that my Serbian friends were in town, but that wasn't enough to keep me in the canyon past 1 p.m. either day. On Saturday I tooled around on Sunnyside with them and their son Sava, now barely 4 years old, and shot some video that Google automatically edited into this short clip:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNYJTZ8OJHQ[/video]
Then, on the 9th a 10-inch snowstorm reinvigorated my affection for what remains of the ski season. It fell as dense, almost graupel-like snow that kept you off the bottom nearly all of the time. The run of the morning was Armpit, which was deep, untracked and absolutely consistent. You could drop it at warp speed with nary a care in the world. I reluctantly left at 11:30 in time to make a 1 p.m. appointment for work.
I was thus in a far better mood when the weekend of the 11th and 12th arrived. Under sunshine and warm temperatures, the morning's hardpack quickly evolved into the most perfect corn that one could hope for.
We reveled in the spring weather, even taking the opportunity to picnic lunch off the Summer Road.
Corn is fun and all, but it's no true substitute for powder. That's what made today so special.
19" of new fell between closing yesterday and opening today, and it was up to 22" and still coming down hard when I left at noon to return to work.
It was the biggest overnight snowfall of the year, but most locals have apparently already given up on the season. The 9:15 a.m. opening time came and went with little happening, yet the pre-opening line never grew beyond the modest maze set up by the lifties. It wasn't until 9:45 or so before we finally got to board, but boy, oh boy was it worth the wait!
With Sugarloaf and Sunnyside both closed for an unspecified reason (given their proximity to one another I suspect it was power), and Backside and Ballroom/Baldy Shoulder off limits we were really hemmed in to just a fraction of the available landscape, but with so few people there today it truly didn't matter. We were getting untracked face shots on every freakin' turn right up until I left at noon. Today was the best day of the year, bar none.
