Today was the first time since 2005 there's been enough snow for me to go to Baldy. It may be a short window if tonight's storm rains to 8,000 feet as predicted yesterday. But it didn't start raining in LA until 7PM, so maybe we'll get lucky and it will come in a bit colder.
Today was the usual mix of positive and negative surprises. It was fortunate we arrived early, as Chair 1 was loaded at only half capacity, so people who showed up at 8:30 probably took well over an hour to get on the hill. The beginner chair 2 was slow and stopped several times, so when we wanted to ski chair 1 we took the Fire Road all the way to the Notch to avoid the big line on 2.
It was a tough day for the road too. We beat the morning problems, but did not escape a mess at the end. We left the ski area parking lot at 4:30 but did not get past Mt. Baldy village until 6:25.
Nonetheless the ski day was well worth the hassles. Friday was cloudy so nothing melted and refroze. There was sun this morning so the chair 4 runs softened. Baldy's patrol observed the same avalanche potential Friday we've been reading about at Mt. High, so people were not allowed to ski down chair 1 then and thus we got the first shot at it today. I suspect the same was true for South Bowl, as we got 4 good powder runs in there before 11AM.
With the bottlenecks getting on the hill Thunder's line never got over 10 minutes. Adam came up from San Diego with Molly, who is on UCSD's ski team. She's from South Tahoe and unfortunately blew out her ACL at Christmas. But she's skiing with a brace and will have the reconstruction surgery in spring. At 11:30 we moved to Chair 1 and skied the widely spaced trees between Nightmare and Morgan's. Snow was not as soft as South Bowl, but still smooth and consistent.
The storm left its usual wind-plastered rime on trees, lift towers, etc. And there were strange places with bad coverage, like some lower sections of Bonanza and Robins. While cover is not yet comparable to our last big years of 1998, 2001 and 2005, nearly all of the steep lines were navigable today.
At 12:30 Adam and Molly had to leave, but I then met up with Ben Solish. Adam and Ben have skied together in the Snowbird group since 1996, and both of them are going with me to Canada next week. Ben and I took our chances with the sun exposed runs. Holcumac faces directly south and ends up under chair 1. It was OK where untracked, but quite heavy and probably an hour past its prime. But the next run down the SW exposure to the back of the parking lot was timed perfectly. It had this strange Baldy combination of powder and corn, which I think is produced by the initial softening of an originally windpacked surface.
After 2PM the clouds and fog rolled in, not climbing up the Notch as usual, but coming from the SE backside of Thunder. I skied a few more runs there, then Morgan's down to the bottom. 19,900 vertical, 7K of varied powder.
Editorial comment to admin 5/12/2012: The "place inline" feature now makes it easy to put pictures in the correct order. Unfortunately every report done the old way now has pictures in reverse order. Easy to fix one report, but it's taking the better part of 2 days to fix 4 years of reports.
Today was the usual mix of positive and negative surprises. It was fortunate we arrived early, as Chair 1 was loaded at only half capacity, so people who showed up at 8:30 probably took well over an hour to get on the hill. The beginner chair 2 was slow and stopped several times, so when we wanted to ski chair 1 we took the Fire Road all the way to the Notch to avoid the big line on 2.
It was a tough day for the road too. We beat the morning problems, but did not escape a mess at the end. We left the ski area parking lot at 4:30 but did not get past Mt. Baldy village until 6:25.
Nonetheless the ski day was well worth the hassles. Friday was cloudy so nothing melted and refroze. There was sun this morning so the chair 4 runs softened. Baldy's patrol observed the same avalanche potential Friday we've been reading about at Mt. High, so people were not allowed to ski down chair 1 then and thus we got the first shot at it today. I suspect the same was true for South Bowl, as we got 4 good powder runs in there before 11AM.
With the bottlenecks getting on the hill Thunder's line never got over 10 minutes. Adam came up from San Diego with Molly, who is on UCSD's ski team. She's from South Tahoe and unfortunately blew out her ACL at Christmas. But she's skiing with a brace and will have the reconstruction surgery in spring. At 11:30 we moved to Chair 1 and skied the widely spaced trees between Nightmare and Morgan's. Snow was not as soft as South Bowl, but still smooth and consistent.
The storm left its usual wind-plastered rime on trees, lift towers, etc. And there were strange places with bad coverage, like some lower sections of Bonanza and Robins. While cover is not yet comparable to our last big years of 1998, 2001 and 2005, nearly all of the steep lines were navigable today.
At 12:30 Adam and Molly had to leave, but I then met up with Ben Solish. Adam and Ben have skied together in the Snowbird group since 1996, and both of them are going with me to Canada next week. Ben and I took our chances with the sun exposed runs. Holcumac faces directly south and ends up under chair 1. It was OK where untracked, but quite heavy and probably an hour past its prime. But the next run down the SW exposure to the back of the parking lot was timed perfectly. It had this strange Baldy combination of powder and corn, which I think is produced by the initial softening of an originally windpacked surface.
After 2PM the clouds and fog rolled in, not climbing up the Notch as usual, but coming from the SE backside of Thunder. I skied a few more runs there, then Morgan's down to the bottom. 19,900 vertical, 7K of varied powder.
Editorial comment to admin 5/12/2012: The "place inline" feature now makes it easy to put pictures in the correct order. Unfortunately every report done the old way now has pictures in reverse order. Easy to fix one report, but it's taking the better part of 2 days to fix 4 years of reports.
