Garry Klassen has been commenting that Thunder Mt. has remained hardpack much of the past month, probably due to an icy snowpack from a few rain events earlier in the winter.
But on Friday L.A. temps reached 80F, with upper 80's predicted for the weekend, so I figured it was now or never for a decent shot at some corn snow. It's illuminating to compare today's report to April 16, 2005. There was way more snow then, and while I got the timing of the corn right, it's a much shorter window of opportunity this year.
I arrived about 10AM to a very quiet day, with only about 2/3 of the upper parking lot (out of 4) occupied. I skied 4 runs on chair 4, 2 each on Turkey Shoot and somewhat of an obstacle course down part of Spring Ridge and the chair liftline. It's very dry, so temps were probably upper 40's, not as warm as I expected and about as big a difference as we can get from the 8,000 foot elevation gain.
I moved to Thunder at 11:30, timing Fire Road/Bonanza and Shortcut ideally for corn, but some of Skyline was on the firm side and Emile's was still very solid at noon, so I took a quick lunch break. Back out at 1PM, Skyline was now in top form for a couple of hours, and finally around 2PM anything with even indirect sun had softened nicely, leaving only a few north glades (notably the trees between Liftline and Robin's) in hard snow.
So I was able to ski about 3/4 of the time on good corn. Herb's/Andy's was a steeper version of the Spring Ridge obstacle course, with best snow about 1PM. The ridge skier's left of Tube was great in afternoon sun about 2PM, as was Goldridge an hour later. 2-3:30PM was the best timing for the most open skiable lines along Emile's and Liftline. At 3:15 I ventured into South Bowl, also well timed but about 1/4 of the traverse back to the lift is burned off and has to be hiked.
I met Shifty Rider riding the Thunder lift. He was on teles, and I cleverly took pictures of the wrong person on Skyline in mid-afternoon.
The area directly under Chair 1 is mostly gone, but I still decided to come down Bentley's at the end of the day. The road from the equipment area had 4 short stretches where I had to take skis off. Skier's right of Bentley's is mostly gone and the bottom of the gully has some debris, but the skier's left fall lines (north facing) were in good shape in late afternoon, so I skied them in series, traversing left each time I approached the gully.
22,400, an interesting day of varied skiing. Some of the sketchier lines reminded me of the vigilant attitude necessary at places like La Grave. But the snow conditions at Baldy were on average considerably better.
As on my Iron Blosam days right after the time change, I'm wondering if ski areas should push their hours (both opening and closing) at least 1/2 hour when Daylight Saving starts second week of March. There's a lot of hard snow around at 9AM and it's plenty bright for skiing at 5PM. Then back up the hours mid-April or so when the snow softens earlier in the morning.
But on Friday L.A. temps reached 80F, with upper 80's predicted for the weekend, so I figured it was now or never for a decent shot at some corn snow. It's illuminating to compare today's report to April 16, 2005. There was way more snow then, and while I got the timing of the corn right, it's a much shorter window of opportunity this year.
I arrived about 10AM to a very quiet day, with only about 2/3 of the upper parking lot (out of 4) occupied. I skied 4 runs on chair 4, 2 each on Turkey Shoot and somewhat of an obstacle course down part of Spring Ridge and the chair liftline. It's very dry, so temps were probably upper 40's, not as warm as I expected and about as big a difference as we can get from the 8,000 foot elevation gain.
I moved to Thunder at 11:30, timing Fire Road/Bonanza and Shortcut ideally for corn, but some of Skyline was on the firm side and Emile's was still very solid at noon, so I took a quick lunch break. Back out at 1PM, Skyline was now in top form for a couple of hours, and finally around 2PM anything with even indirect sun had softened nicely, leaving only a few north glades (notably the trees between Liftline and Robin's) in hard snow.
So I was able to ski about 3/4 of the time on good corn. Herb's/Andy's was a steeper version of the Spring Ridge obstacle course, with best snow about 1PM. The ridge skier's left of Tube was great in afternoon sun about 2PM, as was Goldridge an hour later. 2-3:30PM was the best timing for the most open skiable lines along Emile's and Liftline. At 3:15 I ventured into South Bowl, also well timed but about 1/4 of the traverse back to the lift is burned off and has to be hiked.
I met Shifty Rider riding the Thunder lift. He was on teles, and I cleverly took pictures of the wrong person on Skyline in mid-afternoon.
The area directly under Chair 1 is mostly gone, but I still decided to come down Bentley's at the end of the day. The road from the equipment area had 4 short stretches where I had to take skis off. Skier's right of Bentley's is mostly gone and the bottom of the gully has some debris, but the skier's left fall lines (north facing) were in good shape in late afternoon, so I skied them in series, traversing left each time I approached the gully.
22,400, an interesting day of varied skiing. Some of the sketchier lines reminded me of the vigilant attitude necessary at places like La Grave. But the snow conditions at Baldy were on average considerably better.
As on my Iron Blosam days right after the time change, I'm wondering if ski areas should push their hours (both opening and closing) at least 1/2 hour when Daylight Saving starts second week of March. There's a lot of hard snow around at 9AM and it's plenty bright for skiing at 5PM. Then back up the hours mid-April or so when the snow softens earlier in the morning.
ur lift served season is winding down
