I was a bit lazy getting up there this morning, arriving just after 9AM. After the empty reports from this weekend I was surprised to be parking on the 3rd level down. The website says be there by 9AM. I think they are using the "open to residents only" sign after 9AM just above the village to keep the snowplayers away. This makes sense as there is little snow below the ski area and they were still moving gravel around there with bulldozers. It's unclear from my view at this late date how much of a mudslide mess had to be cleared, but new owner Tom Treaccar was praising the road crews for getting Baldy's access road open as soon as they did.
Tom was very hands-on today, in the ticket office early and arranging the rope and bamboo for Thunder's liftline about 10:30. Overall things seemed to be running fairly smoothly with the conspicuous exception of the morning ticket line, which stretched down the hill and ~50 feet into the parking lot. The ladies in the office were working efficiently but there are not enough of them. Parking attendants, food service people, etc. need to be cross-trained to do tickets for the hour or two of morning crunch time on busy days.
At any rate I got up to the notch by 10AM and skied Thunder continuously to 2:30, leaving early to avoid any potential lineups for downloading chair 1. Here's the upper part of chair 1:
It's an unusual view, as the creek from the rain extends all the way up to where the fire road crosses just below the Notch. Yet the often sketchy Windslab at right is fairly well covered. Nightmare also looks decent, but below that there's lots of rocks and water.
I had one quick run on Thunder before the line built up some. Here's the view ~10:30 when the chair 2& 3 base area was busiest.
You can see 2 brown banks of erosion from the rain. These were roped off and the narrow passages at the bottom could get firm with traffic. However, I suspect they will fill these in with snowmaking over the next month. As noted in the weekend reports, Thunder's cover is quite good, 3-4 feet I would say. Tom Treaccar thinks there was a day of snow on Thunder at the start of the storm in addition to the 2 at the end. I was conservative and brought my rock skis (1999 vintage Atomic 10.20's at 191cm) and I noticed quite a few other skis on the hill at least as old. I would have been better off on my Recons with better edges and a wider shovel.
Bonanza and Skyline were groomed full width and had excellent soft packed powder. The bottom of Robin's is about half width at the moment. Sheltered off-trial like Emile's, Liftline, Goldridge, South Bowl trees and Robin's trees were also mostly soft packed powder. There were some ice bombs near the base of a few trees, but fewer than I expected after all that rain. View from Emile's of the Thunder chair and the new snowmaking reservoir:
South Bowl:
Unconsolidated snow was a bit tricky with the equipment I had but would have been no issue with a wide ski.
The rain erosion was quite severe below the Thunder chair and the traverse back from South Bowl, exposing some of the snowmaking pipes coming from the old reservoir.
At the end of that traverse you better step up to the high path to avoid the debris.
About noon Chair 4 opened for the first time this season. With sun all day yesterday and those old skis I was not tempted in the slightest. I preferred to stay on the now empty Thunder.
I dropped off Skyline into Tube, which was a bit choppier than South Bowl.
Holcumac and chair 4 runs in right background. Some of Holcumac looks good but you would need to cross a flowing stream at the bottom of it.
View from same spot across Skyline.
I also explored 3 sun exposed runs dropping off the fire road in the center right background. By ~1:30PM there was some decent corn over there.
The afternoon sun reflects off the Catalina Channel as viewed from Skyline.
Here's the lower part of chair 1 as I'm riding down. It will take a good 3 feet to clean this part up.
Note that Ottawa is not the only home of nutcases who will ski anything!
Tom was very hands-on today, in the ticket office early and arranging the rope and bamboo for Thunder's liftline about 10:30. Overall things seemed to be running fairly smoothly with the conspicuous exception of the morning ticket line, which stretched down the hill and ~50 feet into the parking lot. The ladies in the office were working efficiently but there are not enough of them. Parking attendants, food service people, etc. need to be cross-trained to do tickets for the hour or two of morning crunch time on busy days.
At any rate I got up to the notch by 10AM and skied Thunder continuously to 2:30, leaving early to avoid any potential lineups for downloading chair 1. Here's the upper part of chair 1:
It's an unusual view, as the creek from the rain extends all the way up to where the fire road crosses just below the Notch. Yet the often sketchy Windslab at right is fairly well covered. Nightmare also looks decent, but below that there's lots of rocks and water.
I had one quick run on Thunder before the line built up some. Here's the view ~10:30 when the chair 2& 3 base area was busiest.
You can see 2 brown banks of erosion from the rain. These were roped off and the narrow passages at the bottom could get firm with traffic. However, I suspect they will fill these in with snowmaking over the next month. As noted in the weekend reports, Thunder's cover is quite good, 3-4 feet I would say. Tom Treaccar thinks there was a day of snow on Thunder at the start of the storm in addition to the 2 at the end. I was conservative and brought my rock skis (1999 vintage Atomic 10.20's at 191cm) and I noticed quite a few other skis on the hill at least as old. I would have been better off on my Recons with better edges and a wider shovel.
Bonanza and Skyline were groomed full width and had excellent soft packed powder. The bottom of Robin's is about half width at the moment. Sheltered off-trial like Emile's, Liftline, Goldridge, South Bowl trees and Robin's trees were also mostly soft packed powder. There were some ice bombs near the base of a few trees, but fewer than I expected after all that rain. View from Emile's of the Thunder chair and the new snowmaking reservoir:
South Bowl:
Unconsolidated snow was a bit tricky with the equipment I had but would have been no issue with a wide ski.
The rain erosion was quite severe below the Thunder chair and the traverse back from South Bowl, exposing some of the snowmaking pipes coming from the old reservoir.
At the end of that traverse you better step up to the high path to avoid the debris.
About noon Chair 4 opened for the first time this season. With sun all day yesterday and those old skis I was not tempted in the slightest. I preferred to stay on the now empty Thunder.
I dropped off Skyline into Tube, which was a bit choppier than South Bowl.
Holcumac and chair 4 runs in right background. Some of Holcumac looks good but you would need to cross a flowing stream at the bottom of it.
View from same spot across Skyline.
I also explored 3 sun exposed runs dropping off the fire road in the center right background. By ~1:30PM there was some decent corn over there.
The afternoon sun reflects off the Catalina Channel as viewed from Skyline.
Here's the lower part of chair 1 as I'm riding down. It will take a good 3 feet to clean this part up.
Note that Ottawa is not the only home of nutcases who will ski anything!
