Weather was clear and sunny until 2PM, then patchy cloud and fog, but not as widespread as many Baldy afternoons. The upper mountain coverage of up to 10 feet is reminiscent of the 1983 and 1998 El Nino years midseason. Lower mountain is well covered but not nearly what we had in 2001 when the storms were colder and the snow level consistently lower. The creek under chair 1 from January's rain is still alive, though there are several snow bridges over it to get back to the lift.
The recent snow was very heavy, as evidenced by the huge mounds of it still pasted on the trees. Thus when it was skied fresh earlier in the week (as in South Bowl, where one run was enough today), it set up into crud that will be very difficult to ski until it consolidates. During the storm chairs 1 and 3 and about 50% of terrain were open and got tracked out each day. The rest of the area opened and got tracked out Thursday.
The core terrain pod on Thunder (Skyline to Robin's) remains packed powder. Emiles/Liftline have great skier packed moguls with no rocks or hard spots. The sunny drops off the Fire Road (Herb's, Andy's, etc.) are also skier packed and ski very nicely once the sun has softened them around noon. The 3 groomed runs on chair 4 had great corn snow cruising in late morning.
Most off-trail sunny exposures are still mashed potatoes and need more time to consolidate. This applies to chair 1 also. Only the main run under the lift and Bentley's have decent skier packed lines at the moment.
Conditions should get better over the next week or two as the snow settles, but not too many rocks come out with the deep coverage. The core area on Thunder should remain skiable until early May with a normal spring. I estimate season-to-date snowfall on Thunder Mt. at about 265 inches. An above average spring would still be needed to reach the 350 totals of the 1983 and 1998 El Nino seasons.
The recent snow was very heavy, as evidenced by the huge mounds of it still pasted on the trees. Thus when it was skied fresh earlier in the week (as in South Bowl, where one run was enough today), it set up into crud that will be very difficult to ski until it consolidates. During the storm chairs 1 and 3 and about 50% of terrain were open and got tracked out each day. The rest of the area opened and got tracked out Thursday.
The core terrain pod on Thunder (Skyline to Robin's) remains packed powder. Emiles/Liftline have great skier packed moguls with no rocks or hard spots. The sunny drops off the Fire Road (Herb's, Andy's, etc.) are also skier packed and ski very nicely once the sun has softened them around noon. The 3 groomed runs on chair 4 had great corn snow cruising in late morning.
Most off-trail sunny exposures are still mashed potatoes and need more time to consolidate. This applies to chair 1 also. Only the main run under the lift and Bentley's have decent skier packed lines at the moment.
Conditions should get better over the next week or two as the snow settles, but not too many rocks come out with the deep coverage. The core area on Thunder should remain skiable until early May with a normal spring. I estimate season-to-date snowfall on Thunder Mt. at about 265 inches. An above average spring would still be needed to reach the 350 totals of the 1983 and 1998 El Nino seasons.
