Mt. Rose, NV, March 28, 2017
View of Mt. Rose Ski Area from Reno Tuesday morning:
In the lodge they have some pics dating back to the founding of the area in 1953.
The Slide Mt. side (Reno Ski Bowl) was developed first. The area labeled “Mt. Rose Bowl” is Sky Tavern, now used as a co-op teaching area for local kids on 8 winter weekends. Also interesting on that map is that several of the Chutes (Execution, Devil’s Slide, Steilhang, etc.) are labeled too. The Mt. Rose Ski Area looker’s right of “Steilhang” in that picture was developed separately and Rose merged with Slide in 1987. The Chutes were “ski at your own risk” into the 1960’s, but then strictly out of bounds until the controlled opening in 2004-05. That’s when I made a point to visit Mt. Rose and was rewarded with a 16-inch powder day during President’s Weekend: viewtopic.php?t=728 My second visit in 2012 was also a powder day: viewtopic.php?t=10085
We chose today because it was 2-for-1 Tuesday, but I had high expectations again and was not disappointed. Mt. Rose leads the Sierra in snowfall with about 700 inches due to getting nearly all snow during some of the atmospheric river storms when lower North Tahoe ski areas got some rain. There was some new snow over the weekend to resurface the mountain in winter snow after the long mid-March warm spell. Tuesday was clear but warmed only into the mid-30’s. Thus the Chutes and the Mt. Rose side were all in packed powder mode. Only the east facing part of the Slide Mt. side was crunchy from any melt/freezing. A few flatter areas softened late in the day but nothing ever got too slushy.
We got up top just before 10AM with this view east over Washoe Lake.
After a few warmup runs I ventured into the Chutes, first Cutthroat, one of the shorter ones far skier’s left. Next I went through the top El Cap gate. It was steep and fimly windpacked at the entry, but I moved skier’s right into Captivator with softer snow.
The Chutes were tracked out of deep powder but not really hammered into firm packed snow or much in the way of moguls. Mt. Rose seems still to be mostly a local’s area with the intermediate terrain much busier than the Chutes, even though the Chutes are comparable in scale and challenge to Mammoth’s chair 22 and not that different from KT-22 at Squaw but with better snow.
Next run was Yellow Jacket with a couple of skiers.
I rarely saw any more people than this while skiing the Chutes.
Around noon I returned to the Yellow Jacket gate but went skier’s left into Detonator.
In this view Detonator is the right sign and Fuse the left sign.
After these I needed a breather and met Liz at the Zephyr chair. We skied the Central Pacific and Bruce’s groomers, then the Olympic trees.
After lunch Liz and I skied Beehive, the only single black gate into the Chutes.
She is barely visible between trees at center.
I took another lap in that area through nicely spaced trees, then El Cap and Hornet’s Nest for a total of 8 runs in the Chutes.
I finished with a couple of groomers on the Mt. Rose side. Upper Ramsey’s has a view to Lake Tahoe.
I skied 27,800 vertical, most of that very high quality skiing.
View of Mt. Rose Ski Area from Reno Tuesday morning:
In the lodge they have some pics dating back to the founding of the area in 1953.
The Slide Mt. side (Reno Ski Bowl) was developed first. The area labeled “Mt. Rose Bowl” is Sky Tavern, now used as a co-op teaching area for local kids on 8 winter weekends. Also interesting on that map is that several of the Chutes (Execution, Devil’s Slide, Steilhang, etc.) are labeled too. The Mt. Rose Ski Area looker’s right of “Steilhang” in that picture was developed separately and Rose merged with Slide in 1987. The Chutes were “ski at your own risk” into the 1960’s, but then strictly out of bounds until the controlled opening in 2004-05. That’s when I made a point to visit Mt. Rose and was rewarded with a 16-inch powder day during President’s Weekend: viewtopic.php?t=728 My second visit in 2012 was also a powder day: viewtopic.php?t=10085
We chose today because it was 2-for-1 Tuesday, but I had high expectations again and was not disappointed. Mt. Rose leads the Sierra in snowfall with about 700 inches due to getting nearly all snow during some of the atmospheric river storms when lower North Tahoe ski areas got some rain. There was some new snow over the weekend to resurface the mountain in winter snow after the long mid-March warm spell. Tuesday was clear but warmed only into the mid-30’s. Thus the Chutes and the Mt. Rose side were all in packed powder mode. Only the east facing part of the Slide Mt. side was crunchy from any melt/freezing. A few flatter areas softened late in the day but nothing ever got too slushy.
We got up top just before 10AM with this view east over Washoe Lake.
After a few warmup runs I ventured into the Chutes, first Cutthroat, one of the shorter ones far skier’s left. Next I went through the top El Cap gate. It was steep and fimly windpacked at the entry, but I moved skier’s right into Captivator with softer snow.
The Chutes were tracked out of deep powder but not really hammered into firm packed snow or much in the way of moguls. Mt. Rose seems still to be mostly a local’s area with the intermediate terrain much busier than the Chutes, even though the Chutes are comparable in scale and challenge to Mammoth’s chair 22 and not that different from KT-22 at Squaw but with better snow.
Next run was Yellow Jacket with a couple of skiers.
I rarely saw any more people than this while skiing the Chutes.
Around noon I returned to the Yellow Jacket gate but went skier’s left into Detonator.
In this view Detonator is the right sign and Fuse the left sign.
After these I needed a breather and met Liz at the Zephyr chair. We skied the Central Pacific and Bruce’s groomers, then the Olympic trees.
After lunch Liz and I skied Beehive, the only single black gate into the Chutes.
She is barely visible between trees at center.
I took another lap in that area through nicely spaced trees, then El Cap and Hornet’s Nest for a total of 8 runs in the Chutes.
I finished with a couple of groomers on the Mt. Rose side. Upper Ramsey’s has a view to Lake Tahoe.
I skied 27,800 vertical, most of that very high quality skiing.
