With its staffing issues Baldy is open for skiing only Friday-Sunday now. I had targeted Friday even before I got home, but unusual weather made the day more.......interesting. Baldy reported 8 inches new snow Wednesday night and weather remained unsettled all day Thursday. I knew not to expect much as new snow at Baldy could be heavily wind affected as in the big storms in late February/early March. Alternatively light snow over a refrozen base could be quite unpleasant on Baldy's steeper terrain. Also, in May sun can turn SoCal snow to mashed potatoes in an hour or two.
There was no issue with rain/snow line as there was snow at the bottom of the switchbacks that had none on the ground a month ago. Baldy's website said to expect 10AM opening. I arrived at 9:30 and I saw chair 1 running but not occupied. By the time I booted up it was loading. I had a 15 minute ticket line and got up to the notch about 10:15. View up Bentley's riding chair 1:
There's no way to tell where there was any base under the new snow. Baldy said all chair 1&4 terrain was closed. Creeks at the bottom were running strong after the past warm month.
The fog persisted all day. Occasionally the clouds thinned so you could see some shadows, but always closed in again. There was occasional mist which likely explains the wet snow surface even at top of Thunder. Thunder liftline:
I went first for Emile's trees, then Robin's trees. Both were exhausting. The dense snow was quite supportable on a smooth surface but very difficult near rolling contours, tree wells and especially where it had been skied. I'm sure the visibility didn't help the situation. Only Fire Road/Bonanza had been groomed, so I skied that for my third run to take a break. By this time I saw people emerging from the South Bowl traverse so I checked that out.
South Bowl was only marginally better than the first two runs so not worth the effort of a strenuous encore. To conserve energy I alternated ungroomed runs with Fire Road/Bonanza for the rest of my day. That included Skyline, Robin's, Liftline and Goldridge before I bailed at 2PM with 12,700 vertical. Lower Robin's:
Skier's right of Robin's takes a lot of sun and is hard to keep covered in spring.
Coverage looks deep on lower Emile's and Skyline.
View about 2/3 of the way down Goldridge with skiers below on Bonanza and Beginner Gulch:
If I had arrived an hour earlier I probably get one or two clean runs on Thunder. But overall the unusual snow surface required more effort than I seem capable of at age 70. So those with better technique and fitness should not regard this as a negative report. I can say that if the snow sets up overnight, anything ungroomed is going to be ugly for this weekend. Hopefully they will groom Robin's and Skyline.
The good news is that Ole in the parking lot said Baldy is shooting for a Memorial Day finale. The cold weather and new snow this week is a contrast to the sustained heat wave that hit when Baldy opened April 22 in 2020 and forced them to close May 3 instead of May 10. But for ski quality, what you really want at this time of year is a corn cycle. That's why we are delaying next week's trip to Mammoth by a couple of days. Patrick will be pleased that this week's weather means Baldy should be open when he is here May 19, and hopefully with more normal spring conditions then.
There was no issue with rain/snow line as there was snow at the bottom of the switchbacks that had none on the ground a month ago. Baldy's website said to expect 10AM opening. I arrived at 9:30 and I saw chair 1 running but not occupied. By the time I booted up it was loading. I had a 15 minute ticket line and got up to the notch about 10:15. View up Bentley's riding chair 1:
There's no way to tell where there was any base under the new snow. Baldy said all chair 1&4 terrain was closed. Creeks at the bottom were running strong after the past warm month.
The fog persisted all day. Occasionally the clouds thinned so you could see some shadows, but always closed in again. There was occasional mist which likely explains the wet snow surface even at top of Thunder. Thunder liftline:
I went first for Emile's trees, then Robin's trees. Both were exhausting. The dense snow was quite supportable on a smooth surface but very difficult near rolling contours, tree wells and especially where it had been skied. I'm sure the visibility didn't help the situation. Only Fire Road/Bonanza had been groomed, so I skied that for my third run to take a break. By this time I saw people emerging from the South Bowl traverse so I checked that out.
South Bowl was only marginally better than the first two runs so not worth the effort of a strenuous encore. To conserve energy I alternated ungroomed runs with Fire Road/Bonanza for the rest of my day. That included Skyline, Robin's, Liftline and Goldridge before I bailed at 2PM with 12,700 vertical. Lower Robin's:
Skier's right of Robin's takes a lot of sun and is hard to keep covered in spring.
Coverage looks deep on lower Emile's and Skyline.
View about 2/3 of the way down Goldridge with skiers below on Bonanza and Beginner Gulch:
If I had arrived an hour earlier I probably get one or two clean runs on Thunder. But overall the unusual snow surface required more effort than I seem capable of at age 70. So those with better technique and fitness should not regard this as a negative report. I can say that if the snow sets up overnight, anything ungroomed is going to be ugly for this weekend. Hopefully they will groom Robin's and Skyline.
The good news is that Ole in the parking lot said Baldy is shooting for a Memorial Day finale. The cold weather and new snow this week is a contrast to the sustained heat wave that hit when Baldy opened April 22 in 2020 and forced them to close May 3 instead of May 10. But for ski quality, what you really want at this time of year is a corn cycle. That's why we are delaying next week's trip to Mammoth by a couple of days. Patrick will be pleased that this week's weather means Baldy should be open when he is here May 19, and hopefully with more normal spring conditions then.
Last edited:
