Baldy TR March 22, 2011

[jojo_obrien]

Got to the ticket window at 8:10. Had to put chains on this time :-( Lots of clowns doing spinouts on the switchbacks.

Got to Thunder about 835 or so....line was longer than yesterday.

Immediately connected with some buddies and we did some hiking to a secret spot off of Fireroad. We blazed the trail......a good way to start the day getting the blood pumpin!

The run was....phenomenal. Sugar light, completely untracked, sun glistening on the snow, perfect (too short, however). I sure hope heaven has runs like that.....

Then proceeded to lap South Bowl over and over and over and over. Finally caught up with Tony C on the traverse. We skiied a few laps on South Bowl..... South Bowl wasn't as epic as yesterday, but there were still many leftovers to be had. (DO you complain after you eat leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner?) I was amazed, lots of great lines to be had. I literally skiied South Bowl all morning long (830 to 1200). Very content with the goods.

Went and grabbed lunch and noticed everyone flocked to 4. (Trying to get some of my leftovers from yesterday? :lol: )

Got disconnected from Tony, and tried Goldridge Trees. Completely DONE. Nothing left but scraps......

Went back to South Bowl and lapped it 3-4 times. Couldn't believe I was still getting semi-tracked lines and some really fun runs. As Tony and I had discussed, the traverse to snowboarders is like ant spray to ants. They hate it.......more goods for the plankers.

Headed down Bentley's at 2:10 PM. It pretty much sucked. It was done.....finished.....it was more of a chore getting down than an enjoyable experience. Needs another dose of snow.

Parking lot by 2:20 PM.

Another fantastic day of the Baldy goods......

Wait for Tony's report......surely it's better than mine :lol:

jojo

 

[Tony Crocker]

Wait for Tony's report......surely it's better than mine

Not really. I forgot the camera. #-o

Today was in some respects similar to Feb. 25, 1998 http://50.87.144.177/~bestsnow/19980225baldytc.HTML
Both were instances where Day 1 was better than Day 2 due to lifts getting open by late morning on Day 1. This induces me to range farther afield in search of powder, and it's a good thing I still have the Chubbs around as "Baldy powder skis" because one of them took a core shot and is hopefully being patched by Garry in time for our next round of predicted storms. I chose the wrong day in 1998, but this time I had prior obligations and not much choice. Coverage was much better in 1998, though it was sunny all day then while the early fog today may help preserve surfaces.

The easy access runs on Thunder were well worked over by Monday's skiers, so I took 6 runs in South Bowl, 5 of them with Jojo. He kept wanting to go far out the ridge but I usually dropped in earlier seeing very lightly tracked tree lines. The 6th run I did follow him out there and went one drainage too far. I was rewarded with untracked fluff similar to Monday but ended up below the ropeline with a 5+ minute slog up to the South Bowl exit traverse.

Chair 4 opened about 11AM as the Baldy cloud was moving in earlier than usual. I skied one run in the trees near the lift. JSpin's comment about "snow that doesn't know whether it's winter or spring" was an apt description. There were chunks but I could plow through them easily enough. Next time up I headed for Eric's in the gathering fog. Snow was a similar in-between state but very smooth. Excellent skiing EXCEPT thin at the top so I was hearing unpleasant rocky sounds the first few turns. So I skied more deliberately than last year when Jojo and I ripped one of those bowls with similar snow but a deeper base and better visibility. There was also a creek at the bottom of Eric's, so the exit was considerably more difficult than last year.

It was 12:30 by the time I was headed back up chair 1, so I went in for lunch. The Notch was busy, it took 15 minutes to get food. FYI Garry drove up at noon and went home because the parking looked full. Liftlines however were not a big deal, about 5 minutes at Thunder's 10:30AM peak and similar for the first hour chair 4 was open.

After lunch I skied some thick powder in Morgan's (per Garry's Monday recommendation), then up chair 4 for the same slackcountry skier's left of Roller Coaster that I had first tried on that February 1998 day. I skied about 700 vertical in there, which resulted in a ~25 minute traverse and bootpack to get back to the Notch. By this time (2:40PM) the fog was pea soup. I skied 2 more runs on Thunder (Andy's and Robin's trees in the interest of visibility) and decided I'd had enough about 3:10. So I headed down Nightmare to the car. I had a relatively easy exit down the hairpins and through the village, but there was a 15-20 minute delay just above the tunnels at 4PM to clear an accident.

17,900 vertical, about 7K of powder of varied quality. A good day but definitely more work than for those who went Monday.

Once again Mt. Waterman is hamstrung by its road. I was eager to get a pristine day there today vs. the leftovers at Baldy. Unfortunately the current best estimate for that road is Thursday (nope, now they say Friday). In the absence of new snow, the powder from Sunday is going to be fairly heavy by then. The good news is that 2 small storms are expected later this week to refresh surfaces.