Baldy 2/28/09

A

Aukai

New member
Wow, what a fun, fun spring day that was.

South Bowl was the featured attraction yesterday- beautiful spring snow, made nice and soft by the sun, but kept from getting too sticky and slow by high clouds and a moderate breeze. Other pockets of snow (i.e. Goldridge trees) were nice as well, but South Bowl was just money.

Chair 1 runs to the lot were OK, but chunky and demanding. After a couple of post-lunch laps to the bottom I went back up and just lapped South Bowl the rest of the day.

Coverage is burning off quickquickquick- Roller Coaster was already gone, though Turkey Shoot and Spring Ridge still seems adequately covered. South Bowl was fine, and the runout is still intact, but may not be for much longer without significant new snow. Exposed areas on Thunder are already gone.

The Baldy Bowl itself looked mighty enticing from the resort- anyone who went up there today no doubt indulged in some serious cornography.

All in all a beautiful, very satisfying spring day.
 
I was there too. The warm weather rated to be a plus since it rained up there on Monday. Mt. Baldy is in full-on spring mode: nearly everything is still skiable but in most places there's a 2+ hour window of optimal conditions. I'd recommend getting up there soon, because coverage on the sunny exposures is going fast.

I arrived 8:45AM, half an hour later than last week but parked in the same spot near top of the second level. As soon as I got to the notch I dumped hat, sweater and switched to spring gloves. First run on Fire Road/Bonanza was mostly softened, so I knew to hit chair 4 right away. Chair 4 runs are good until 11AM or so. Roller Coaster's exposed section is gone already, but Turkey Shoot was in good shape.
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Spring Ridge and the trees under chair 4 are still adequately covered.

Skier's left of Holcumac is gone, and I couldn't tell how much trouble its exit was going to be. So at 10:30 I ventured down Eric's.
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View of nice fall line in Eric's. I was maybe an hour early here. The surface was softened, but your skis felt all the irregularities just underneath.

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The exit gully from Eric's can be a 700 vertical PITA. It was confined but fortunately the creek wasn't going so I've definitely seen it worse.

Back up top I skied a few groomers before lunch. Robin's and particularly Skyline were in their prime just before noon. Coming out of lunch I took one run to the bottom on Nightmare, which I had heard was now heavy in the afternoons.
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View down Nightmare. You need to slide in from either side now as the direct entry from the top is gone. It skied similar or a bit better than Eric's. Probably best from 1-2PM.

Back up to Thunder for the off-trail stuff. Entrance's to Herb's is gone but Andy's was good. At Garry's suggestion I tried Clementine, skier's left of Goldridge. Snow was good but navigation is tricky with the declining cover and I did have to step over some gravel once. But Aukai is right. The best corn was the wide open line down the middle of South Bowl, which I hit first at 1:30PM, then again a couple of runs later.
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View of the prime corn on South Bowl.

Late afternoon the north facing shaded stuff on Thunder had the best snow.
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Liftline skied well, but there's more shrubbery poking through than last week.

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In honor of joegm here's the mogul line down the middle of Emile's. I also skied Goldridge and a couple of tree runs. Robin's trees were the best.

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Here's the bottom of Robin's, which late in the day is heavy and isothermic. And it shows that if you're going to drop off the Fire Road you better plan ahead where you're going to come out.

Last run was the same line I took skier's left of Bentley's last week.
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With a slight NW tilt it softens more slowly than the other Chair 1 runs and is definitely the way to go at the end of the day. In a couple of weeks it will be the only way IMHO if the weather stays this warm.

21,400 vertical, maybe one lift line on Thunder all day of more than 5 people. By 6PM I was dining alfresco in a T-shirt in Pasadena. There are some unusual virtues to skiing in SoCal.
 
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im thinking of going up next weekend but im undecided between baldy and waterman. it looks like we may have a LITTLE snow this week too.
 
Waterman being so much north facing may be a mixed blessing in current conditions. The face may be crunchy until at least noon. Same for the OB stuff down to the road below.

In the big years all of the above has great corn in April. But there isn't going to be enough snow left by then unless we have a good March. Those places need a 4+ foot base, and it wasn't much more than that at the peak 2 weeks ago.

The 2 upper chairs at Waterman could last longer.
 
Attack of the greeny bleached 70s photos again. Seriously, Tony, you've got to get your camera fixed. :lol:
 
When they shipped the camera back to Canon last April it was gone for 6 weeks. No problem since I was on the DL as long as the camera was. If I do it now, that will be 10-15 ski days with no camera. Perhaps I should take a poll to determine whether FTO readers are sufficiently offended by quality that I should stop posting pics for a while. :P

I do want to keep that camera because the new model configured similarly (size, wide angle, IS) has no viewfinder. I am thinking of getting a big camera like admin's for this summer's eclipse cruise, but I would very unlikely to use that for skiing.
 
Tony Crocker":37g1j5wc said:
Perhaps I should take a poll to determine whether FTO readers are sufficiently offended by quality that I should stop posting pics for a while. :P
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There's a much easier third option: replace it. With your week with friends in Utah just around the corner, now's the time to ditch that POS and buy a new camera! Fer chrissakes, drop two bills and get one. Those photos suck.
 
Pocket size, equivalent wide angle to 28mm on film cameras, image stabilizer and viewfinder. I'm open to suggestions. Best deals are always mail order, so it's not going to happen before this weekend.

Without ALL the features I described above (not $200 I don't think) I'm inclined to have it fixed again. The quality problems are clearly since the last repair.
 
Tony Crocker":2v7g2f17 said:
Pocket size, equivalent wide angle to 28mm on film cameras, image stabilizer and viewfinder. I'm open to suggestions.
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What, you want me to do your research for you? [-X Start browsing those digicam review websites now.

Tony Crocker":2v7g2f17 said:
Best deals are always mail order, so it's not going to happen before this weekend.
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Overnight or second-day delivery is a foreign concept to you?

Tony Crocker":2v7g2f17 said:
Without ALL the features I described above I'm inclined to have it fixed again.
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You're out of your gourd.
 
Tony Crocker":2emkefai said:
Without ALL the features I described above I'm inclined to have it fixed again.
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You're out of your gourd.[/quote]

I don't know too much about point and shoot compacts other than the reviews on Cnet.com but I picked up a Nikon S550 (I'm partial to Nikon after loving the D40) for well under $200 http://www.google.com/products/cata...8&cid=2412144734401447144&sa=title#ps-sellers. Here's a few pics from 2-14 at Waterman to give you an idea of how they come out, on the fully auto mode.

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Thought you'd like that one...

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Thought you'd like that one. To be fair that was really the only option to get down, there were rocks exposed (which are covered in the picture after we both side slipped our way down there) and the street was about 5 ft below where Tony was standing.

Pictures look okay for a really tiny sub-$200 point and shoot though, at least I think so. Unfortunately the video that it takes is pretty bad.

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SD1000 does not have wide angle. Replacement for mine is SD870, no viewfinder. The only thing I'm doing this week is visting the camera store than sent it out to complain. Just in case there is another screwed up setting that can be fixed easily.

I will resolve this issue sometime, like the infamous red jacket. The rest of you may have to suffer in the meantime.
 
Tony Crocker":2agfpkzm said:
SD1000 does not have wide angle. Replacement for mine is SD870, no viewfinder. The only thing I'm doing this week is visting the camera store than sent it out to complain. Just in case there is another screwed up setting that can be fixed easily.

I will resolve this issue sometime, like the infamous red jacket. The rest of you may have to suffer in the meantime.
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#-o #-o This symbol is the closest I can get to shooting myself in the head for having to view future shots that were taken on Tony's 70s time-machine camera.
 
I LOVE my film camera. :mrgreen:

Pictures look great, but it can take a while before I get a chance to post them here if I even bother. :lol:
 
Not sure what 5 cameras you're talking about, but the none of the ultracompacts I found on that search have viewfinders.
 
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