tseeb
Well-known member
Nice progression of reported snow at Northstar for 24 hours ending at 5 am for 1/20 to 1/22: 4 – 8 – 12. But only two inches fell after closing on Saturday and there is not enough base to go blasting off runs that had been opened over previous two months using snowmaking so Sunday did ski like a foot new. I mostly came up to watch to watch football and to make sure I am there Monday morning when the next number in the daily snowfall series should come out at either 16 or 20. But it’s even better as Northstar just reported 29” on 1/23 according to onthesnow.com, besting Alpine’s next best so far reported 28”. My friend is already blowing his 700 foot driveway a couple of miles north of Truckee, where it is still snowing heavily. He estimated 14” on his deck rail this morning, but it seemed deeper in his driveway where I already went early this morning to retrieve gloves left in my SUV overnight.
On Sunday, I left San Jose at 545 and arrived at Northstar not much after 830. Parking was filling quickly, due to there finally being some snow plus better weather than snowy and windy Saturday, when many of us with cheap passes blacked out. I met up with my snowboarding friend from Truckee as we boarded shuttle to village and we were on the gondola at 905. We heard there were lines on the Backside on Saturday so we went up Zephyr and took Drifter to there get ahead of the crowds. We both tried the couple of inches of powder on the edge of the run and I took at hard fall where I rejoined the groomed as I did not see a lip and did not hit it straight so it threw me.
We went up the new this year 1440 vertical feet second backside lift. Most of the runs were still roped or poled off, and marked closed, so we stuck to the two black open backside runs and very carefully went into the trees along the edges where it looked worthwhile. Coverage was very thin so the powder had to be skied slowly, and I was still hitting objects, mostly wood, but including some rocks. We rode Backside three times and Promised Land twice before moving to Lookout. My friend passed up lower Martis as he thought it looked too firm. I took it the second time down and found it was mostly good although there was some frozen chunkys about halfway down. You could see that not as much snow fell at the less than 7,000 foot elevation bottom of Lookout than did at the 8,000 foot top. It started snowing lightly about 11 am and by noon it was snowing harder and my friend left as his knees were getting sore and we knew Monday would be better. I moved to Vista and skied it a total of 4 times and also skied Comstock, the top front-side lift, twice. It was windy at the top, but Springboard and Powder Bowl, both Northstar black runs with decent coverage and snow were open. I took my last ride up Vista at 1 pm and just missed a shuttle and got back to the car at 130 after waiting less than 10 minutes for the next one. It was snowing hard at the car and on the exit road from Northstar. There were rear-enders at the stop sign leaving the ski area and at the stop light where I turned left at the highway. 15 runs/20K vertical
On Sunday, I left San Jose at 545 and arrived at Northstar not much after 830. Parking was filling quickly, due to there finally being some snow plus better weather than snowy and windy Saturday, when many of us with cheap passes blacked out. I met up with my snowboarding friend from Truckee as we boarded shuttle to village and we were on the gondola at 905. We heard there were lines on the Backside on Saturday so we went up Zephyr and took Drifter to there get ahead of the crowds. We both tried the couple of inches of powder on the edge of the run and I took at hard fall where I rejoined the groomed as I did not see a lip and did not hit it straight so it threw me.
We went up the new this year 1440 vertical feet second backside lift. Most of the runs were still roped or poled off, and marked closed, so we stuck to the two black open backside runs and very carefully went into the trees along the edges where it looked worthwhile. Coverage was very thin so the powder had to be skied slowly, and I was still hitting objects, mostly wood, but including some rocks. We rode Backside three times and Promised Land twice before moving to Lookout. My friend passed up lower Martis as he thought it looked too firm. I took it the second time down and found it was mostly good although there was some frozen chunkys about halfway down. You could see that not as much snow fell at the less than 7,000 foot elevation bottom of Lookout than did at the 8,000 foot top. It started snowing lightly about 11 am and by noon it was snowing harder and my friend left as his knees were getting sore and we knew Monday would be better. I moved to Vista and skied it a total of 4 times and also skied Comstock, the top front-side lift, twice. It was windy at the top, but Springboard and Powder Bowl, both Northstar black runs with decent coverage and snow were open. I took my last ride up Vista at 1 pm and just missed a shuttle and got back to the car at 130 after waiting less than 10 minutes for the next one. It was snowing hard at the car and on the exit road from Northstar. There were rear-enders at the stop sign leaving the ski area and at the stop light where I turned left at the highway. 15 runs/20K vertical
