The object lesson of altitude/exposure in March was demonstrated in the opposite extreme today. In my snow preservation formula (altitude/latitude and exposure distribution) for North American ski areas Steamboat ranks #89 and Copper Mt. #5. There was zero spring or melt/frozen snow anywhere on the front side from Super Bee to the West Village, even at the base, which is at 9,600 feet. 9,600 would be 3/4 of the way up Steamboat's vertical. We did not ski the A lift or Spaulding Bowl, which face more east.
The first bus we caught from the free parking lot went to the West Village, which serves a massive amount of beginner and low intermediate terrain. After a warmup run on the Timberline lift, we crossed to the Center Village, rode Eagle and Excelerator to ski two long Super Bee cruisers.
OpenSnow did advise of moderate winds, and here's Liz near the top of Super Bee.
Once again the weather models missed on the sun forecast. It clouded over completely within an hour.
The Storm King poma was closed, so we skied down Ptarmigan and Fairplay to Center Village. I recalled the peculiarity that it's almost impossible to cross between the Eagle and Flyer sides of the mountain without going down to Center Village.
From Flyer we rode Rendezvous on our way to the backside. First view of Tucker Mt.:
We got down to the Blackjack and Three Bears lifts at 12:15, but alas the wind at the top of Three Bears was gusting 80-90mph and it had been shut down shortly before we got there.
So we took Blackjack back to the front side and moved to Sierra. Riding Sierra had a strong windblast in the face that would not be out of place at Mammoth. But also like Mammoth the Revenge run under the lift had considerable windblown snow.
I had to check out the backside via the poma above Sierra. View down Mountain Chief with Tucker in the background:
That view is directly south, so I decided to traverse skier's right where the exposure bends more to the east.
That might be a good idea in January (last visit was in Jan. 2015) but not on an overcast and windy day in March. The Bradley's area I skied was bulletproof and partly mogulled and Liz was wise not to go with me. Riding Mountain Chief I could tell that direct south facing Six Shooter was partially softened.
But the main reason I was riding Mountain Chief was to reach the longer Union Bowl fall line on the front side. I was right about that call as there was a lot of windsift in there. I also noticed the Otto Bahn traverse track from Rendezvous of Mountain Chief, so I wanted to round up Liz for that more comfortable route to Union Bowl.
Independently we both missed the traverse track to Timberline chair and ended up at West Village. In my case the chair stopped for 10 minutes, building up a considerable lift line. Fortunately we made it back to Rendezvous at 2:25 so we could get back to Mountain Chief. Liz in the Union Peak windsift:
We decided to end the day on that high note and got down to Center Village at 3:00PM with 19,200 vertical. It is likely we will return to Copper Friday and hopefully get a shot at Tucker. With similar orientation as Union Bowl and longer fall lines, Tucker could have Castle quality windsift in the right circumstances.
The first bus we caught from the free parking lot went to the West Village, which serves a massive amount of beginner and low intermediate terrain. After a warmup run on the Timberline lift, we crossed to the Center Village, rode Eagle and Excelerator to ski two long Super Bee cruisers.
OpenSnow did advise of moderate winds, and here's Liz near the top of Super Bee.
Once again the weather models missed on the sun forecast. It clouded over completely within an hour.
The Storm King poma was closed, so we skied down Ptarmigan and Fairplay to Center Village. I recalled the peculiarity that it's almost impossible to cross between the Eagle and Flyer sides of the mountain without going down to Center Village.
From Flyer we rode Rendezvous on our way to the backside. First view of Tucker Mt.:
We got down to the Blackjack and Three Bears lifts at 12:15, but alas the wind at the top of Three Bears was gusting 80-90mph and it had been shut down shortly before we got there.
So we took Blackjack back to the front side and moved to Sierra. Riding Sierra had a strong windblast in the face that would not be out of place at Mammoth. But also like Mammoth the Revenge run under the lift had considerable windblown snow.
I had to check out the backside via the poma above Sierra. View down Mountain Chief with Tucker in the background:
That view is directly south, so I decided to traverse skier's right where the exposure bends more to the east.
That might be a good idea in January (last visit was in Jan. 2015) but not on an overcast and windy day in March. The Bradley's area I skied was bulletproof and partly mogulled and Liz was wise not to go with me. Riding Mountain Chief I could tell that direct south facing Six Shooter was partially softened.
But the main reason I was riding Mountain Chief was to reach the longer Union Bowl fall line on the front side. I was right about that call as there was a lot of windsift in there. I also noticed the Otto Bahn traverse track from Rendezvous of Mountain Chief, so I wanted to round up Liz for that more comfortable route to Union Bowl.
Independently we both missed the traverse track to Timberline chair and ended up at West Village. In my case the chair stopped for 10 minutes, building up a considerable lift line. Fortunately we made it back to Rendezvous at 2:25 so we could get back to Mountain Chief. Liz in the Union Peak windsift:
We decided to end the day on that high note and got down to Center Village at 3:00PM with 19,200 vertical. It is likely we will return to Copper Friday and hopefully get a shot at Tucker. With similar orientation as Union Bowl and longer fall lines, Tucker could have Castle quality windsift in the right circumstances.