EMSC
Well-known member
Better than expected.
After a week of enjoying 70+ degree temps on the front range I anticipated worse. After being sick for a couple days I hadn't bothered skiing on Sat - the first cool/cold day in a week. Projected snowfall came in a bit lighter at 4" for Copper on Sat afternoon/evening. But fairly dense powder which helped out a lot more than I'd anticipated. North facing stuff was quite good snow conditions, with the expected more variable on other aspects which the wife & I tried to limit.
Complete blue bird day, but with a decent breeze up top to keep you & the snow cool. By the end of the day the breeze was more of a gale, with probably 50+ MPH gusts on the tops of the ridges. Not too big a deal as temps were OK, but they did push you around on the exposed ridge leading to Union bowl for example.
Anyway, due to the time change and my only being partly recovered we didn't get on-snow until 11:30am
and started alternating laps in Spaulding bowl/resolution or down Hallelujah depending on the size of the lift line on the bottleneck Poma. After several laps on each we finally took the Lillie G traverse over into Copper bowl. Upper lillie G was ok but lower bowl was not very good. Unfortunately we mis-timed it and missed the last Tucker cat by only 3 minutes :evil: (though probably better for my recovery that I didn't do the hike). We opted for multiple laps of Union bowl instead (rendevous to mtn chief lifts is the 'lap' to not have to hike up from Sierra lift). Great snow in there. Eventually getting closed out of the bowl with one lap up Sierra before heading down mtn with one final lap on Eagle to get us back over to our start at the Super B. Finished by ~3:50pm with no stopping. Final TR for a couple weeks - with Chief of Race duties coming up again...
After a week of enjoying 70+ degree temps on the front range I anticipated worse. After being sick for a couple days I hadn't bothered skiing on Sat - the first cool/cold day in a week. Projected snowfall came in a bit lighter at 4" for Copper on Sat afternoon/evening. But fairly dense powder which helped out a lot more than I'd anticipated. North facing stuff was quite good snow conditions, with the expected more variable on other aspects which the wife & I tried to limit.
Complete blue bird day, but with a decent breeze up top to keep you & the snow cool. By the end of the day the breeze was more of a gale, with probably 50+ MPH gusts on the tops of the ridges. Not too big a deal as temps were OK, but they did push you around on the exposed ridge leading to Union bowl for example.
Anyway, due to the time change and my only being partly recovered we didn't get on-snow until 11:30am
and started alternating laps in Spaulding bowl/resolution or down Hallelujah depending on the size of the lift line on the bottleneck Poma. After several laps on each we finally took the Lillie G traverse over into Copper bowl. Upper lillie G was ok but lower bowl was not very good. Unfortunately we mis-timed it and missed the last Tucker cat by only 3 minutes :evil: (though probably better for my recovery that I didn't do the hike). We opted for multiple laps of Union bowl instead (rendevous to mtn chief lifts is the 'lap' to not have to hike up from Sierra lift). Great snow in there. Eventually getting closed out of the bowl with one lap up Sierra before heading down mtn with one final lap on Eagle to get us back over to our start at the Super B. Finished by ~3:50pm with no stopping. Final TR for a couple weeks - with Chief of Race duties coming up again...