EMSC
Well-known member
Day 5 for me and some nice powder to start, though on limited terrain.
The drive up was a bit slower than usual as well as 'sporting' with a couple inches on the road and quite slick. Especially as early as we drive up.
Eldora has gotten several more trails open in the past week as well as the IP lift (see map below). With e surprise being upper & lower Diamondback. I have to give a big thumbs up to whomever is directing the terrain openings this year. Much more logical choices IMO.
Official report was 5" new, with 3" of that overnight. Fortunately snowing heavily though. Arrival had ~6" in the parking lots (7:15a due to the race training schedule). Jr ended up doing a mix of free skiing, then SL gates on Chute. I made the relatively unusual (for me) choice to keep snowboarding for the day. The first time in a very long time that I've ever snowboarded on a new snow day. And easily the deepest new snow I've ever done on a board. By the time I got in line and made very early tracks on LaBelle it was probably ~8" of floaty creamy-ness. Untracked skier right for the first lap, cut up fun for lap two then headed for Diamondback, which had very low traffic as so few people knew it was open. So several more laps of partially cut up powder.
By that point crowds were getting decent and despite continued heavy snow, things stayed skied out and even with some moguls on the steeper pitches. My take was that many decided to avoid I70 in a snowstorm given that Eldora has been mostly keeping pace with terrain openings so far. Not sure if that might change shortly though as natural snow trails will open sooner elsewhere.
Winds were light to start the day but picked up to ~30 on top and a few favored spots including the portion of shelf road next to the snowmaking lake. With the wind at that spot, it was literal braille heading down shelf road. No idea how, exactly, but a woman and her kid slid down a ~10' embankment and into the edge of the lake. Never saw it, but clearly had just happened as she was trying to figure out what happened as she looked up at the road. Fortunately sheriff has several officers usually at the resort on weekends, but it's been quite a while since I've seen a car in the lake.
pre-opening line and visibility
only a handful of tracks so far... (I might have been ~15th chair?).
but then it got crowded
Most of the season this lift (Indian Peaks) has max of ~10 chair wait.
Yellow is snowmaking, green is open trails.
The drive up was a bit slower than usual as well as 'sporting' with a couple inches on the road and quite slick. Especially as early as we drive up.
Eldora has gotten several more trails open in the past week as well as the IP lift (see map below). With e surprise being upper & lower Diamondback. I have to give a big thumbs up to whomever is directing the terrain openings this year. Much more logical choices IMO.
Official report was 5" new, with 3" of that overnight. Fortunately snowing heavily though. Arrival had ~6" in the parking lots (7:15a due to the race training schedule). Jr ended up doing a mix of free skiing, then SL gates on Chute. I made the relatively unusual (for me) choice to keep snowboarding for the day. The first time in a very long time that I've ever snowboarded on a new snow day. And easily the deepest new snow I've ever done on a board. By the time I got in line and made very early tracks on LaBelle it was probably ~8" of floaty creamy-ness. Untracked skier right for the first lap, cut up fun for lap two then headed for Diamondback, which had very low traffic as so few people knew it was open. So several more laps of partially cut up powder.
By that point crowds were getting decent and despite continued heavy snow, things stayed skied out and even with some moguls on the steeper pitches. My take was that many decided to avoid I70 in a snowstorm given that Eldora has been mostly keeping pace with terrain openings so far. Not sure if that might change shortly though as natural snow trails will open sooner elsewhere.
Winds were light to start the day but picked up to ~30 on top and a few favored spots including the portion of shelf road next to the snowmaking lake. With the wind at that spot, it was literal braille heading down shelf road. No idea how, exactly, but a woman and her kid slid down a ~10' embankment and into the edge of the lake. Never saw it, but clearly had just happened as she was trying to figure out what happened as she looked up at the road. Fortunately sheriff has several officers usually at the resort on weekends, but it's been quite a while since I've seen a car in the lake.
pre-opening line and visibility
only a handful of tracks so far... (I might have been ~15th chair?).
but then it got crowded
Most of the season this lift (Indian Peaks) has max of ~10 chair wait.
Yellow is snowmaking, green is open trails.