Eldora, CO Dec 18-19, 2022

EMSC · Dec 20, 2022

Chilly and mostly firm, but carve-able.

Both days were a bit chillier than I had anticipated. The 18th mostly due to a persistent wave cloud. Both days probably about mid-20's for a high. All the pics below are from the 19th (today) as it was dramatically more photogenic. Surfaces were the typical Eldora early season. Firm with a soft layer on top that eventually leaves things with patches of scratchy and patches of soft fluff by the afternoon. The exception was Corona trail which had just opened and snowmaking was still occurring on the other half of it (it's a very wide trail). Although somewhat unfortunately, that also meant getting snowed on each time up the lift.

Probably my final open trails map for the early season now that all lifts are open. Next trails up for snowmaking are Wolf Tongue and Alpenhorn on the backside.

Since I am there for my son's race training we are parking a bit after 7a and they load the lift at ~7:30a. It is nice to have the best parking you can get, but not that much fun to wake up at 5:45a for the privilege. Ironically most actual race days are 'sleep in' days by comparison. Due to early cloud to the east it's sort of, but not quite, alpenglow on the hill to match the lift which is named Alpenglow. Not much of the lift maze has been built for the day yet in this one.

Lot of pics of the base. Just pointing out in this one that Eldora is one of the relatively few ski resorts served by a metro city bus line. This is the line up just prior to opening to the public at 9a on a Monday.

This is what natural snow trails look like after having had 80MPH wind gusts a few days prior. They had to shut the entire upper mountain. Upper Ambush in this pic.

Corona.

Best I could do for an action pic.

Backlit snowmaking = 'snowbow' colors.

Prep work for next up...

Tony Crocker · Dec 20, 2022

Eldora strikes me as a very "eastern " ambience: a snowmaking dependent complex of cut trails with lots of cold, wind and weekend crowds. At least it doesn't get the rain! It is where Liz first skied when she took a year off in college and lived in Boulder.

EMSC · Dec 20, 2022

Tony Crocker said:
Eldora strikes me as a very "eastern " ambience

Yep. Early season is basically like a very high altitude eastern area. Eventually, depending on the year, it transitions over to being an actual western area. Average is probably mid-to-late January for that change. Occasionally by just after Christmas or as late as mid-Feb in a bad snow year.

Mid-Dec reports like mine above, in what is close to an average snow year so far, can be hard to reconcile with other reports later in the year like these:
Mid-Jan Eldo
March Eldo

jamesdeluxe · Dec 21, 2022

Tony Crocker said:
It is where Liz first skied when she took a year off in college and lived in Boulder.

As a sophomore at CU Boulder, I went there a couple times during the winter of 1984 with friends. I remember taking the Corona chair and clumsily scratching down the Around The Horn trail. Didn't downhill ski again until the 2000-01 season.

ChrisC · Dec 21, 2022

I have seen some friends go to UC Boulder with visions of loads of powder skiing in their future. The reality is often 80% of skiing is at Eldora. My brother's friend would come back from Boulder over some breaks and head to Burlington to ski Stowe and Mad River.

Looks like Eldora has improved significantly since the 90s.

jamesdeluxe · Dec 21, 2022

ChrisC said:
UC Boulder

Not to nitpick; however, it's (illogically) referred to as CU Boulder. No idea how that happened but as a former Buff I feel obligated to point out the proper usage!

Looks like Eldora has improved significantly since the 90s

If I understand correctly from @EMSC's reports, most of the improvement has only happened recently due to Alterra?

EMSC · Dec 21, 2022

jamesdeluxe said:
most of the improvement has only happened recently due to Alterra?

First need to correct the owner which is Powd'r Corp (also own Copper in Colo). Alterra only owns Steamboat in Colo, but also operates Winter Park on lease from city of Denver. All other Ikon pass places in Colo are partners.

The prior ownership group (technically 3 partners, but one had 50%) did actually do some upgrades in the late 90's then built the IP Lodge in the base area mid-00's and then did close to nothing after that other than piss off most of the city of Boulder with various antics.

Huge improvement in operations and relationships in the community since then (2017 sale) as well as a new 6 pack, several new trails and snowmaking, new parking lot, etc... in just the past 5 years despite Covid issues. One of the most embarrassing items on the list was some of the most ramshackle and disgusting bathrooms on the planet (worse than an old gas station) under the prior ownership and fixed up and fully re-done in the very first year by the new ownership. You literally tried to hold it and not go until later (or if a guy preferable to go in the trees).

EMSC · Dec 21, 2022

12-21-22

Hot off the press, literally. Partly sunny AM but starting to get breezy and overcast as the cold front begins to move in. Glad I took my runs early. I sneak in ~10K vert over 75-90min while then using wifi to not take a day off work. I figure I start work at 7:30a on days like this so my ski time just puts me back to roughly a normal 8 hour work day. If there were powder or something I would call an audible and just not work (very few meetings for me in my company as the whole C-suite takes off for ~2 weeks around the holidays). So plenty to get done, but on my own schedule.

same temps as earlier this week - low to mid 20s. if anything even less crowded than Monday was.

Bottom of Muleshoe/Wolf Tongue. probably open by late this weekend.

Pano showing clouds coming in from the west (L side of image) while way down there, Barker reservoir in the slot to the right side is still in the sun. Even a few spits of flurries on occasion. Tomorrow should be 35-55 MPH winds and below 0F temps so training is cancelled pre-emptively and I get to sleep in.

jimk · Dec 23, 2022

I skied Eldora two days this very week (before Christmas) in 2003. I'd been west a number of times before, but it was the first place my wife and kids ever skied west of the Mississippi River. We went on to ski Loveland and Winter Park on that same trip. Eldora was in good shape that Dec, although the glades weren't open. We had a good experience and enjoyed the great views of Barker Reservoir. I remember joking, if Eldora was situated in the mid-Atlantic among our regular places that we skied it would be king of the hill by a mile!

EMSC · Dec 24, 2022

jimk said:
I remember joking, if Eldora was situated in the mid-Atlantic among our regular places that we skied it would be king of the hill by a mile!

You just have to build up the first several thousand verts underneath it to get to the right altitude and we'll consider moving it, lol!

12/23/22
Yesterday was first day of a couple of natural trail openings - Psychopath and Jolly Jug Glades. 8" storm total helped a bit from the big 'event' storm in the news across the country. A bit thinnish (plenty of logs to find esp in the glades, but not a lot of hitting dirt or anything. After all, while the wind blows it off many areas at Eldora, there are a couple spots where it blows snow into the terrain. My big adventure was warming up for some potential back country by up-hilling in my current set-up (just got new boots for example). The frontside uphill route at Eldora has been open for a couple weeks, but they shut that down over the holiday period do to expected crowds so I had to do it Friday or not for 2 weeks when it would be too late to be dialing it in.

The frontside route is more interesting than most ski areas in that it is a mix of on-trail and 'in-bounds' but off-trail sections. Starting in the extreme bottom near the nordic center, up the beginner terrain, then next to one of the snowmaking reservoirs, briefly back on trail before a moderately long section behind/below the "little hawk" knob, connecting over to Jolly Jug for a short minute before following the catch-line out road up and then the extreme edge of the upper Jolly Jug Glades. In all it's about 1.5 miles long and ~1050 vert.

Given some ski team stuff I had to discuss, and family obligations by early afternoon I didn't get a ton of actual skiing in (6 runs), but the up-hill definitely gave a huge ski work out as well as equipment testing. It was odd temperature wise due to a big inversion. ~18F when we parked at the hill but way warmer than the -8F at my house on the flatlands. And I was fortunate to have a mtn wave cloud overhead too. As anyone who goes uphill at all can tell you, it is all about managing heat. As in you will get too hot no matter the outside temp conditions.

Just as much fun was that the SUV was in the shop for a recall so we drove the 12 year old Sonata up the hill even though it is pretty poor in snow. Made it without too much issue, but happy to be back to normal mode on transportation for skiing, lol. I'll probably do a 2nd/different TR for all of next weeks mostly short and repetitive days.

First run on all new gear for the Mrs. Took a minute for her to get used to it all, but seems mostly pretty happy with it by the end of the day.