EMSC
Well-known member
Two "day's" at Eldora. Two very different days.
Sat 20th: What a miserable day all around. Woke up to try to hit Eldo at a reasonable hour in the am with scheduled activities in mid-afternoon, just to have my power steering go out. After spending a little over an hour fixing the power steering in the single digit temps and strong wind to boot (oh the fun). I finally made it up to Eldo where it was overcast with light snow. Not sure how much they were reporting overnight as it didn't much matter with the wind. Another day of boarding which temporarily brought my season to date ratio back to even (3 of each - skiing or snowboarding).
I took two cell pics all day - both from the safety of the truck. The snow was a mixed bag with baby soft on wind loaded areas and scraped down man made in others. I endured for 8 runs and ~2 hours before calling it quits (10.4K of vert). I found out today that the wind chill was supposedly -37 at the top :shock:. And for days like this I propose that Admin find/make a smiley that is cold to the bone shivering! Too bad in a way, as with the early season repetition I've been getting I was boarding pretty good.
Sun 21st: Fairly cold and um, "breezy", to start the day as I was part of/helping with a coaches clinic for the race team. Did get a good start though - on the hill at the 8:30 buzzer. The mountain did a generally good job of grooming things out and the snow surface was in surprisingly good shape most everywhere - except for Corona which was chunky, icy, 'stuff' with a few patches of soft new snow (the 'backside' opened on friday). Primarily focused on the clinic, but interestingly as I was commenting about how I was shocked that no natural snow trails were open yet despite a constant stream of snowfall in Dec, the patrol began roping things, putting up signage, etc... to prep for opening things (though not much natural stuff made it open by the time I left at ~2pm.)
The highlight of the day was the opening of La Belle with a true velvet cream of a surface as they continued to blow snow from the side of the trail. Normally I hate skiing in snowmaking, but this was that very special and rare surface that only occasionally is made with the snowguns. And after the clinic'ing ended (~12ish) several of us continued to hit it for a half dozen consecutive sweet runs until after skipping lunch I took off around 2pm-ish. Funny how a sunny day that's cold can feel so warm compared to the bitter day previously. Though two cold days in a row did do a bit of damage to the skin on my nose (oops). With one of the coaches saying that on Sat he had to buy and use a face mask for the first time ever in his life.
A lot of fun to re-focus on technique and carving movements on Sunday. The feeling one can get from nailing run of good carved turns reminded me of just why I've spent so much time focused in/on racing stuff. Though with Steamboat on the horizon, I'll have to re-focus on powder (oh darn).
Sat 20th: What a miserable day all around. Woke up to try to hit Eldo at a reasonable hour in the am with scheduled activities in mid-afternoon, just to have my power steering go out. After spending a little over an hour fixing the power steering in the single digit temps and strong wind to boot (oh the fun). I finally made it up to Eldo where it was overcast with light snow. Not sure how much they were reporting overnight as it didn't much matter with the wind. Another day of boarding which temporarily brought my season to date ratio back to even (3 of each - skiing or snowboarding).
I took two cell pics all day - both from the safety of the truck. The snow was a mixed bag with baby soft on wind loaded areas and scraped down man made in others. I endured for 8 runs and ~2 hours before calling it quits (10.4K of vert). I found out today that the wind chill was supposedly -37 at the top :shock:. And for days like this I propose that Admin find/make a smiley that is cold to the bone shivering! Too bad in a way, as with the early season repetition I've been getting I was boarding pretty good.
Sun 21st: Fairly cold and um, "breezy", to start the day as I was part of/helping with a coaches clinic for the race team. Did get a good start though - on the hill at the 8:30 buzzer. The mountain did a generally good job of grooming things out and the snow surface was in surprisingly good shape most everywhere - except for Corona which was chunky, icy, 'stuff' with a few patches of soft new snow (the 'backside' opened on friday). Primarily focused on the clinic, but interestingly as I was commenting about how I was shocked that no natural snow trails were open yet despite a constant stream of snowfall in Dec, the patrol began roping things, putting up signage, etc... to prep for opening things (though not much natural stuff made it open by the time I left at ~2pm.)
The highlight of the day was the opening of La Belle with a true velvet cream of a surface as they continued to blow snow from the side of the trail. Normally I hate skiing in snowmaking, but this was that very special and rare surface that only occasionally is made with the snowguns. And after the clinic'ing ended (~12ish) several of us continued to hit it for a half dozen consecutive sweet runs until after skipping lunch I took off around 2pm-ish. Funny how a sunny day that's cold can feel so warm compared to the bitter day previously. Though two cold days in a row did do a bit of damage to the skin on my nose (oops). With one of the coaches saying that on Sat he had to buy and use a face mask for the first time ever in his life.
A lot of fun to re-focus on technique and carving movements on Sunday. The feeling one can get from nailing run of good carved turns reminded me of just why I've spent so much time focused in/on racing stuff. Though with Steamboat on the horizon, I'll have to re-focus on powder (oh darn).