Mt. Baldy 12/13/09

[ski-the-face]

Brought the rock skis. Got the 50 dollar season pass so it was better than the usual Sunday. Lapped Chair 2 for twice before Chair 3 opened. Fresh tracks about half boot deep HA, soft underneath with spotty ice patches. Same goes for Skyline after Chair 3 opened, but snow was fantasticly (it is a word) light in the windrifts on the left side. snow was deeper in the drifts, overhead sprays if you try. I did :-o . When the good stuff got scraped off, around 12, we headed to the otherside of Thunder, we had found it! Served us freshies til closing. CH4 closed, CH1 closed, Emilies and Robins closed, Goldridge, Skyline, and intermediates only open. you had to be creative. it was fun.
I had a picture of chair 1 but can't get the file size down. It just shows little coverage and the creek.
It was worth it.

 

[Aukai]

Went up today as well for Bonanza laps. Was fairly surprised at the fact that the entire mountain was not a sheet of bulletproof ice, but there was plenty of that lurking just under the dust on Skyline as you point out. Tried a run through skier's left of Emile's and found nothing worthwhile, as predicted.

I can't figure out where you found these stashes. I would have been all over this area had I known it was in the offering. They roped closed the trees to skier's right of Goldridge, so I assumed it was unrideable in there, but if that's where you were, apparently not ](*,) I had thought Goldridge was closed too. Guess I should have looked closer instead of making that high speed banked turn...

Still, Bonanza laps are always fun in early season...

 

[ski-the-face]

Sssshhhhhh! :mrgreen:

 

[Tony Crocker]

Baldy is highly variable depending upon wind deposition. Ski-the-face had the right plan: check everything out to see where the snow got deposited this time and hope your equipment isn't too trashed by the time you find out.

I'm amazed Skyline was skiable. It often has soft carvable windbuff once there's a base, but the steeper wind-exposed lower half is usually a total minefield until the reported base is 3-4 feet.

 

[ski-the-face]

Skyline was by far the most favorable run off chair three early on. tried to sneak on robins but for some reason they really didn't want anyone going down it.

 

[Aukai]

...the steeper wind-exposed lower half is usually a total minefield until the reported base is 3-4 feet.

Oh it was, don't get us wrong... This was where the "obstacles" mentioned on the snow report were.

There were some easily avoidable saplings and such down there. The ice on the bottom face was the biggest hazard. The sides of the run up top had reasonable windbuff in the morning.

All in all coverage was more than I expected. Another storm or two and they'll be looking good up there.

 

[ski-the-face]

OH that ice! almost forgot my near death run in with the out of control ski patrol on the sled as he came bulldozing into the line for chair 2 as we had a 15 minute stand still while the lift was down. the guy almost took out 15 people skidding over the ice and spinning, finally coming to a stop about 3 feet from the closest unalert by stander.