I can't remember a time I've misjudged snow conditions so badly. Never was the expression, "You should have been here yesterday" more true. After Tuesday's skiing at Baldy, a couple of small refresher storms were predicted for the rest of the week. It snowed 6-8 inches Wednesday night and 3-5 Thursday night. Though Mt. Waterman opened Friday, I figured it wouldn't get that many people and fresh tracks would be available (certainly in the slackcountry) Saturday, similar to my last visit 2 years ago. I had also limited my flexibility by having my ski pants out for repair before the next long trip, picking them up Friday.
The first clue that all would not be wonderful was Garry's Baldy report from Friday. He thought the snow was good but the rime fog was so bad he couldn't keep his goggles clear and gave up after 3 runs. Baldy draws fog in chronically, and I had just skied in it most of the day Tuesday. But this was a different animal on Friday, very humid and much of it must have condensed on the fresh snow surface. At Mt. Waterman it cleared up overnight, driving temps down and resulting in a frozen but very breakable crust on anything untracked.
The off trail alternative, runs that had been skied Friday, were even worse frozen death cookies.
So after one survival run of that I pushed skier's left where there had been less traffic.
It doesn't look that bad, but appearances can be deceiving.
Here are the views riding chair 1
and chair 2
Even up here the untracked was breakable crust and quite unpleasant. So I ruled out any idea of trying to ski Avalanche down to the highway below. The only decent skiing is on the chair 2 groomers, but they are only 400 vertical so I just did 3 of those.
I took my last run far skier's right of the Face.
More of the same, breakable crust or death cookies.
I called it a day before 11AM with 4,100 vertical. I wonder if even Patrick would have been able to ski this snow fluidly and hang around any longer. Ironically I was the second person to buy tickets; this is the first time I've ever actually been on a first chair. :lol:
Warning to SoCal skiers for the next several days: Avoid anything that is not either groomed or intensively skier packed to break up the crust.
Here is the vast backcountry going down to the road 1+ mile below the ski area.
On a positive note, there's a lot of snow up there. Nearly everything faces north, so there was probably a decent base from February before the 4-6 feet of snow that fell over the past week. So when our weather settles into spring mode for a week or so there's going to be some great corn snow at Mt. Waterman similar to what I enjoyed back in 1983.
The first clue that all would not be wonderful was Garry's Baldy report from Friday. He thought the snow was good but the rime fog was so bad he couldn't keep his goggles clear and gave up after 3 runs. Baldy draws fog in chronically, and I had just skied in it most of the day Tuesday. But this was a different animal on Friday, very humid and much of it must have condensed on the fresh snow surface. At Mt. Waterman it cleared up overnight, driving temps down and resulting in a frozen but very breakable crust on anything untracked.
The off trail alternative, runs that had been skied Friday, were even worse frozen death cookies.
So after one survival run of that I pushed skier's left where there had been less traffic.
It doesn't look that bad, but appearances can be deceiving.
Here are the views riding chair 1
and chair 2
Even up here the untracked was breakable crust and quite unpleasant. So I ruled out any idea of trying to ski Avalanche down to the highway below. The only decent skiing is on the chair 2 groomers, but they are only 400 vertical so I just did 3 of those.
I took my last run far skier's right of the Face.
More of the same, breakable crust or death cookies.
I called it a day before 11AM with 4,100 vertical. I wonder if even Patrick would have been able to ski this snow fluidly and hang around any longer. Ironically I was the second person to buy tickets; this is the first time I've ever actually been on a first chair. :lol:
Warning to SoCal skiers for the next several days: Avoid anything that is not either groomed or intensively skier packed to break up the crust.
Here is the vast backcountry going down to the road 1+ mile below the ski area.
On a positive note, there's a lot of snow up there. Nearly everything faces north, so there was probably a decent base from February before the 4-6 feet of snow that fell over the past week. So when our weather settles into spring mode for a week or so there's going to be some great corn snow at Mt. Waterman similar to what I enjoyed back in 1983.
/ .