Mt. Baldy, CA 03-29-06

[jkamien]

Admin asked on an earlier thread about the road up to Mt. Baldy, so I decided to take some pictures (see Pictures of Mt. Baldy Road). Often when driving up there, I still find it hard to believe that winter exists just ahead. But it does. Clouds were drifting around, but I had hopes for a sun-drenched day of fresh snow. There were ominous clouds over the mountains ahead, but I ignored them. The snow line seemed to be about 6000 feet or so - around the village, IIRC. Once again, the road was cleared down to wet pavement, but I still saw at least one person putting on chains.

I arrived in the parking lot at about 7:40. After booting up in my truck, I waited in line for the chair for about 20 minutes. I finally loaded onto Chair 1 at 8:15. The ride up to the Notch from 6500 feet to 7800 feet took about 20 minutes, at least. That old center pole double chair sure pokes along.

I arrived at Chair 3 and was about 12th in line or so. It was sunny at this point and I was itching to go. And I waited with the other early risers...and waited...and waited. We all were impatient and grousing about how the sun was going to turn the powder to glop before we could even get to it. So we waited some more...and waited...and waited. A couple of snowboarders hiked up and hucked the rock near the bottom. That provided some great entertainment when they both ragdolled a couple of times after crashing on impact. And we waited some more and tried to entertain ourselves with friendly conversation and other assorted amusements.

The chair finally got loading and my butt was on it around 9:30 and we skied off the chair at about 9:40. Unfortunately, the clouds rolled in and visibility began deteriorating. I had befriended Joe and Burke in line next to me and asked if I could tag along with them. They are Mt. Baldy regulars and were gracious enough to bring me to some hidden stashes, as long as I promised to not tell too many people.

We started off in Robin's Trees. The surface was completely covered and extremely consistent. The snow was sort of like gymnast's chalk, but softer and about a foot or so deep. Maybe like skiing a mushy bar of soap that has been sitting in water for a long time. At any rate, it skied very predictably, allowing dreamy completed turns and the three of us had a ball in the untracked snow. Some of the chutes in those trees can get steep!

Burke and Joe then took me to a secret place that Joe measured at 50 degrees in one spot with his inclinometer. This place was like a natural half pipe that went on for a long way. Joe said with dry and deep powder it is incredible. I can see why!

We continued to rip up runs at a fast pace, including more South Bowl, Robin's trees and a couple of Gold Ridge thrown in for good measure. Joe had one of those altimeter watches and reported 10 runs for 10,350 vertical feet by the time they stopped and I quit for lunch at about 1:30. The Notch Restaurant serves good chicken-noodle soup (ask for extra chicken)!

After lunch, I did three more South Bowls and two Robin's trees. The visibility got even worse as pea soup enveloped Thunder Mountain. I downloaded Chair 1 at about 3 PM for a very cold and windy ride back to the parking lot.

Back home in Sherman Oaks, it was again Springtime with sunny skies and temps in the upper 60's.

Someone explain to me how Mt. Baldy can offer such a superior product, but hardly anyone in LA seems to know or care. I'm not complaining, that's for sure, but everything else I like around here seems to have a gazillion people competing for it all of the time. Baldy skis like a world-class mountain, is less than 1.5 hours from LA, and hardly anybody goes there.

 

[snowave]

nice..thanks for sharing! lets hope for more late season snow!

 

[baldyskier]

Thanks for the post. I'm pretty mystified as to why Baldy is so unappreciated in So. CA. I have a few theories:
1) So. CA skiers/boarders are oftentimes more into looking good and being with the in crowd than doing serious skiing/boarding.
2) Baldy has lots of nasty weather (I bet Mt. High was nice on Wed, for example.)
3) Baldy also has rough edges; Old, tired lifts that don't always work, not much slope work in the summer, so lots of obstacles, little snowmaking. I think a lot of Baldy haters tried it once, picked a bad day, hit some rocks, got fogged in, etc.
4) Newbies at Baldy don't often know where to ski. Knowing where to ski at Baldy makes all the difference. I went up the lift on Wed. with a guy that moved from Salt Lake City after last winter. He got in 150 days in SLC last year. He was happy just to be back on snow, but he got really jazzed when I took him to the Goldridge trees. He was amazed at the terrain, so close to LA.
5) Mt. Baldy road scares some people away.
6) Lots of So. CA skiers/boarders aren't good enough to appreciate Baldy's more extreme terrain.

I'm glad more people don't come up; more powder for the rest of us!

For more discussion on this enigma, see this Mt. High forum thread:
http://forum.mthigh.com/index.php?topic=9800.0
BTW, I guess I missed you on Wednesday. I was the crazy guy hiking up the hill just before they got the lift going. (Oversize green fanny pack, remember?)

 

[Sir Felgar]

I agree with all those points. As for #6, I brought up a friend last year who hadn't skied in years and wasn't very experienced. The snow was amazing that day and the weather good. Even though the ticket & rental prices weren't bad, he just couldn't handle Baldy's terrain, even Emile's in hero snow.

One thing I would add to the list of points is that not only is Baldy's terrain steep and rough, but it's really narrow. There aren't too many places on the Mt. where you can ski GS turns on a consistently groomed base. Most rec. skiers want this type of trail, and Mt. High, Bear and Summit have them in abundance. The only gripe I have is that the narrow trails and uneven snow make you turn more and thus make you more tired than at other mountains. The plus side is that you become a better skier and get in good shape.

 

[baldyskier]

"Hero snow", lol. First time I heard that one. Yes, Baldy can definately improve one's skiing. I've been coming up about 2-6 times a year for about 20 years, and I've seen my skiing consistently improve.
As for conditioning, I've found that taking the stairs in a 12 story bldg. at work helps prepare my legs and my lungs for Baldy. I also ride my bike up hills on the weekend. Only a 35 min ride, but high level of intensity. I occasionally take longer rides, too. For instance, in September, I rode from my car in Glendora to Mt. Baldy road, up to the parking lot, then back to Glendora via Glendora Ridge Road.
Thanks for your trip report for Thurs., BTW.

 

[jkamien]

For more discussion on this enigma, see this Mt. High forum thread:
http://forum.mthigh.com/index.php?topic=9800.0
BTW, I guess I missed you on Wednesday. I was the crazy guy hiking up the hill just before they got the lift going. (Oversize green fanny pack, remember?)

So you were one of the two ragdolls? I didn't notice your big green fanny pack. I was the guy in black with a strip of green plaid hanging from the Dakine backpack.

Thanks for the Mt High discussion link. That explains a lot. Mt. Baldy is exactly what I want in a ski area. Funky road, funky lodge, funky lifts, great steep, narrow and challenging terrain. I'm glad it is not more popular, but it also shows me how out of step I am with the general snow sliding populace around here.

You can take the boy away from Mad River, but you can't take the Mad River out of the boy!

 

[baldyskier]

No, I wasn't one of the ragdolls. I arrived around at Thunder at 9:30 and hiked only partway up. I was on skis. I skied down (uneventfully) once the lift got started.
I agree on Mt. Baldy. A true die-hard, old school skier's mtn.

 

[Tony Crocker]

I've commented on the demographics of the skier/boarder population here before, notably on the Mt. Waterman discussions. So it was interesting to read the Mt. High forum. The participants readily conceded Mt. Baldy's superiority in steeps, powder and trees. The criticisms of slow lifts, substantial sun-exposed terrain and minimal snowmaking are valid. The slow lifts are less of a problem at Baldy now than 25 years ago due to lower crowds.

I expected more boarder comments about minimal parks and excessive traversing (South Bowl) given Mt. High being at least 2/3 snowboarders. There was a lot of discussion about the roads, which is a little surprising because actual travel time from much of SoCal is similar between Mt. High and Mt. Baldy. But one of Mt. High's strengths is having no mountain driving, so presumably that's an attraction to the regulars and also why they don't want to schlep the extra hour to Big Bear.

My own skiing at Mt. High has declined precipitously over the years, despite the significant improvements Mt. High's current management has made since taking over in 1997. If you look at my History of Southern California Snow Conditions you'll see that our seasons are not distributed like a normal distribution, but more like a dumbbell, with lots of crummy seasons like this year and several good ones like last year, but not that many "average" ones.

In the good years the base on Baldy's Thunder Mt. gets up to 6-10 feet and with the superiority of its terrain I'll do all my local skiing there under those conditions. In the bad years the greater water capacity of Big Bear Lake means that those areas will reach full operation while Mt. High will typically only have 1/2 to 3/4 of its high density West side open and often none of East. So I'll do a day or 2 at Big Bear despite the much longer drive. When all of Mt. High East and West are open, its terrain is more interesting than Big Bear as well as being more convenient. But in order for Mt. High to be my area of choice there has to be just enough natural snow + snowmaking to get it into full operation but not so much natural snow as to bring Baldy into the picture. So my last day at Mt. High was on President's Day in 2001 with my intermediate son Andrew when I had been to Baldy the day before on my own.

This has been a season of strange storms that snow nearly as much in Big Bear as in the San Gabriel mountains, when the normal pattern is that Baldy in particular gets at least twice as much snow. So when you look at open terrain Big Bear clearly has SoCal's best skiing most of this season.

 

[baldyskier]

Tony,

Thanks for your post. Where do you like to ski in Big Bear? I've actually never skied in Big Bear myself. I have run into a lot of skiers at Baldy over the years who have told me that Baldy was better, so I never bothered to make the drive up to Big Bear. I may have to reconsider, esp. at times when Baldy doesn't have good coverage.

 

[jkamien]

This has been a season of strange storms that snow nearly as much in Big Bear as in the San Gabriel mountains, when the normal pattern is that Baldy in particular gets at least twice as much snow. So when you look at open terrain Big Bear clearly has SoCal's best skiing most of this season.

If someplace has superior snow on mediocre terrain, does that make it the 'best skiing'? Maybe you mean that Big Bear clearly has the best snow conditions most of this season?

I will grant you that I've only been to Snow Summit once in my life. It was enough to convince me never to go there again. All surfaces seemed to be completely covered with manmade ice. I looked for any interesting terrain and found none. I did find some loudspeakers at trail entrances telling me what I could and could not do on that trail, and lots of advertising on lift poles.

I think that Snow Summit could have 3 feet of cold smoke and I would not rank that as better skiing than Mt. Baldy's South Bowl with questionable coverage.

But that's just my not-so-humble opinion. My skiing preferences are most assuredly out of step with the general public. Give me puzzles requiring some thought and creativity to ski, not homogenized, groomed boulevards.

 

[Ryno]

Very nice to see Baldy representing.

With NOAA broadcasts promising, it seems I may have a well-timed vacation on my hands next week.

 

[baldyskier]

Ryno,

Nice picture.
Isn't the snow level supposed to be rather high for these upcoming storms? I thought the local resorts would see more rain and wet snow than decent snow.

 

[Ryno]

I'm thinking yeah, a little moist; it's just not all that cold right now. Still, I'm idiotically optimistic and, bottom line, not all that picky. Put some more snow on the ground, I'll happily deal with whatever form it takes. Little slushy? Hey, i'm all about spring condit's at baldy.

Fingers crossed.

Snow down to 5000, and then cooler lows?

If chair 4 is running and there's any way down to the lot on skis, that bodes well for Thunder Mtn. I can lap that all day with no problem if South Bowl is a little iffy. Great for getting one's bump skiing fine-tuned if there's not much to be had in the trees.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/fin ... DY%2C+CA++

 

[Tony Crocker]

The detail of my SoCal skiing is here: http://webpages.charter.net/tcrocker818/vft_scal.htm . You can see that Snow Summit gets a day or two nearly every year while Baldy gets multiple days in the good years and none at all in nearly half.

A disproportionate number of the Snow Summit days are in December or early January when Mt. Baldy is closed or marginally open. So it's often the first day of the season and I'm just looking to get back on skis again before the Mammoth or destination trips. The cruisers on the east side of Snow Summit are rarely crowded and are good for an early season warmup. Since the terrain is not that challenging I rarely go back there in mid or late season.

With regard to ice/snow conditions Snow Summit does the best job of snowmaking and grooming that I have seen anywhere. When the runs open for the first time on snowmaking they nearly always are packed powder. And I've been there a week after rain and seen impressive restoration with only snowmaking and grooming and no natural snow. Since 2002 this expertise has been extended to Bear Mt. also, though Bear's layout and park configuration result in more congestion and hardpack than at Summit.

I have fairly specific criteria for being willing to ski the local areas, which are defined on my SoCal progress report: http://members.aol.com/crockeraf/cal0506.htm . Snow Summit's criteria are satisfied far more often than Baldy's, though I will always prefer Baldy if both qualify. Note that Baldy has never attained the 4-foot base in 2005-06, though from your eyewitness reports there's enough coverage on Thunder to be worth my consideration if I were at home on the weekends.

This will be the first season ever that I do not ski even one day in SoCal, because I am home only one weekend between mid-February and Easter. I do not take vacation days for local skiing except for big Baldy powder days, and I would have passed on the one-footers over a marginal base in the past couple of weeks even if I had been here.

My local skiing is also likely to be more limited in the future because I now have an MVP pass at Mammoth.

 

[Ryno]

...I now have an MVP pass at Mammoth.

Just re-upped myself for '07. Hard deal to beat. Looking like 4th of July skiing again this year.