I wanted to get in a day at Baldy before we leave for Australia next Tuesday. Friday was what fit my busy schedule best but I did not know what to expect. Garry had skied Baldy Sunday Apr. 2 and said the ungroomed areas were in that awkward churned heavy powder stage and not yet settled out for good spring skiing. This process took nearly a month during the same time frame in 2005.
Driving up I was first surprised not to see one scrap of snow at 5,000 feet where the hairpin road starts the climb to the ski area. I had forgotten that it rained four days in mid-March, which probably took out most of the low elevation snow.
The bottom of chair 1 has taken a beating too.
It’s still a clean traverse on the hill skier’s left, dropping down to the chair 1 area or the parking lot. There is no snow loading chair 1; the liftie puts your skis on the chair behind as is done for those who download.
The good news is that the NW facing steeps on chair 1 looked well covered and in the case of Bentley’s here skier packed.
I reached the top of chair 1 about 10:30 and went to chair 4, where as expected the snow was well softened already. View down the side Canyon Eric’s which leads to the back of the parking lot:
Too much cover has been lost on direct south facing. It looks skiable from the first ridge on a west aspect, but not until mid-afternoon with pleasant surfaces. But as noted below chair 4 is not open in the afternoons, at least midweek. So you would need to hike to ski Eric’s at the right time. It’s not really worth it because chair 1 steeps and Thunder are in optimal corn mode mid-afternoon.
View east across chair 4 with San Gorgonio in background:
The top of chair 4 has a panoramic view of Thunder Mt. and the upper part of chair 1’s steeps.
I’ve labelled the major runs in red and those are legible when you click and zoom for higher resolution.
Chair 4 corn was close to its peak when I started skiing and still quite good when I had skied all 3 groomed runs at 11:30. At that time chair 4 closed and the liftie there relocated to Thunder, which had been closed in the morning.
While riding chair 1 a local gave me some insight into Baldy’s staffing challenges, which are primarily due to cheap-ass management. Decades long lift attendant and maintenance worker Nick left for Big Bear because Baldy wouldn’t raise his $18/hour pay to the $24 he was offered at Big Bear. The same local said two more of Baldy’s more competent employees also left for similar reasons.
Baldy also wants a laughable $899 for 2023-24 season passes on sale now, which are fortunately usable for the rest of this season. Current season passes are only honored through April 30, and those people will have to either buy the new pass or day tickets to ski in May. I expect Thunder’s coverage to persist at least two weeks into May.
Fire Road/Bonanza was in corn mode when Thunder opened and Shortcut/Robin’s got there about half an hour later. So I held off the final groomed run Skyline until my 4th Thunder run. View from Skyline into South Bowl:
View down Skyline with sun exposed runs labelled in red in background (zoom for names):
Holcumac drops into Sugarpine under chair 1, but Holcumac is steep as well as south facing and has lost too much snow to be worth skiing now.
Deep coverage on upper Liftline and Emile’s:
Ungroomed terrain on NW facing Thunder takes until about 2PM to reach optimal corn mode in current April weather, as I’ve observed in past springs with an overnight freeze. To Baldy’s credit during daylight time, Thunder stays open until 5:15PM. Consequently, through 1:30 I skied 8 groomed runs on Thunder plus SW facing Herb’s Hollow.
I then checked out the lower mountain, starting with Nightmare. Snow was not entirely smooth but it was soft enough to blast through irregularities and I was able to ski it nonstop. Lower down Sugarpine is obstructed by this log I had to step over.
There’s a low road left of those trees but it had lots of exposed gravel, so the path in the pic was the easier one.
I took a second run down below, exploring the broad Morgan’s Grove area between Nightmare and Bentley’s. While I didn’t enter in the right place and had to step through some scree, once I got in there it was smooth corn at 2:15PM.
I returned to Thunder at 2:45 and started with South Bowl, which had good corn down the middle. As I started the exit traverse, a group of people came down Bill’s Bowl. So next I skied a bit farther down Skyline to score even smoother corn in Bill’s Bowl.
Bottom of Thunder with wide coverage in Robin’s and lower Emile’s:
I skied most of the remaining ungroomed runs on Thunder: Emile’s, Robin’s trees, Goldridge, Liftline. I finished on Bentley’s. Often you have to stick to far skier’s left where more north facing preserves better coverage. But with current depth, the bottom of the gully was skier packed corn and skied very easily.
I finished at 4:40 with 23,300 vertical, most of it in excellent corn by timing runs by time of day. I advised Adam to get up there today. It’s going to get warmer by Sunday with freezing levels above 10,000 feet. Thunder will still ski well when it’s warmer but chairs 1 and 4 will not.
Driving up I was first surprised not to see one scrap of snow at 5,000 feet where the hairpin road starts the climb to the ski area. I had forgotten that it rained four days in mid-March, which probably took out most of the low elevation snow.
The bottom of chair 1 has taken a beating too.
It’s still a clean traverse on the hill skier’s left, dropping down to the chair 1 area or the parking lot. There is no snow loading chair 1; the liftie puts your skis on the chair behind as is done for those who download.
The good news is that the NW facing steeps on chair 1 looked well covered and in the case of Bentley’s here skier packed.
I reached the top of chair 1 about 10:30 and went to chair 4, where as expected the snow was well softened already. View down the side Canyon Eric’s which leads to the back of the parking lot:
Too much cover has been lost on direct south facing. It looks skiable from the first ridge on a west aspect, but not until mid-afternoon with pleasant surfaces. But as noted below chair 4 is not open in the afternoons, at least midweek. So you would need to hike to ski Eric’s at the right time. It’s not really worth it because chair 1 steeps and Thunder are in optimal corn mode mid-afternoon.
View east across chair 4 with San Gorgonio in background:
The top of chair 4 has a panoramic view of Thunder Mt. and the upper part of chair 1’s steeps.
I’ve labelled the major runs in red and those are legible when you click and zoom for higher resolution.
Chair 4 corn was close to its peak when I started skiing and still quite good when I had skied all 3 groomed runs at 11:30. At that time chair 4 closed and the liftie there relocated to Thunder, which had been closed in the morning.
While riding chair 1 a local gave me some insight into Baldy’s staffing challenges, which are primarily due to cheap-ass management. Decades long lift attendant and maintenance worker Nick left for Big Bear because Baldy wouldn’t raise his $18/hour pay to the $24 he was offered at Big Bear. The same local said two more of Baldy’s more competent employees also left for similar reasons.
Baldy also wants a laughable $899 for 2023-24 season passes on sale now, which are fortunately usable for the rest of this season. Current season passes are only honored through April 30, and those people will have to either buy the new pass or day tickets to ski in May. I expect Thunder’s coverage to persist at least two weeks into May.
Fire Road/Bonanza was in corn mode when Thunder opened and Shortcut/Robin’s got there about half an hour later. So I held off the final groomed run Skyline until my 4th Thunder run. View from Skyline into South Bowl:
View down Skyline with sun exposed runs labelled in red in background (zoom for names):
Holcumac drops into Sugarpine under chair 1, but Holcumac is steep as well as south facing and has lost too much snow to be worth skiing now.
Deep coverage on upper Liftline and Emile’s:
Ungroomed terrain on NW facing Thunder takes until about 2PM to reach optimal corn mode in current April weather, as I’ve observed in past springs with an overnight freeze. To Baldy’s credit during daylight time, Thunder stays open until 5:15PM. Consequently, through 1:30 I skied 8 groomed runs on Thunder plus SW facing Herb’s Hollow.
I then checked out the lower mountain, starting with Nightmare. Snow was not entirely smooth but it was soft enough to blast through irregularities and I was able to ski it nonstop. Lower down Sugarpine is obstructed by this log I had to step over.
There’s a low road left of those trees but it had lots of exposed gravel, so the path in the pic was the easier one.
I took a second run down below, exploring the broad Morgan’s Grove area between Nightmare and Bentley’s. While I didn’t enter in the right place and had to step through some scree, once I got in there it was smooth corn at 2:15PM.
I returned to Thunder at 2:45 and started with South Bowl, which had good corn down the middle. As I started the exit traverse, a group of people came down Bill’s Bowl. So next I skied a bit farther down Skyline to score even smoother corn in Bill’s Bowl.
Bottom of Thunder with wide coverage in Robin’s and lower Emile’s:
I skied most of the remaining ungroomed runs on Thunder: Emile’s, Robin’s trees, Goldridge, Liftline. I finished on Bentley’s. Often you have to stick to far skier’s left where more north facing preserves better coverage. But with current depth, the bottom of the gully was skier packed corn and skied very easily.
I finished at 4:40 with 23,300 vertical, most of it in excellent corn by timing runs by time of day. I advised Adam to get up there today. It’s going to get warmer by Sunday with freezing levels above 10,000 feet. Thunder will still ski well when it’s warmer but chairs 1 and 4 will not.
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