Day 89: "Supportable pow."
I lost track of how much snow fell this week but it was something on the order of three feet or maybe a bit more. Snowbird's YTD snowfall total is now up to 755 inches, and the Alta Collins plot this morning was still showing a settled snow depth of 195" (Snowbird's is "only" 183 inches at the Gad 2 snow plot) three weeks into May. :shock:
I wasn't sure, though, of what to expect from the new snow today. The storm wound down during the day yesterday but Snowbird never opened, ostensibly because of avalanche concerns from the heavy, wet new snow. I'm guessing that anticipated Friday crowds in mid-May didn't justify the expenditure of stabilizing that stuff. Better to let it settle for a day first.
Which at a minimum meant that it would be untracked today. But what consistency? Snowbird opened an hour earlier than usual at 8 a.m., and said publicly that they may close around noon as daytime heating really kicked in. I met up with Bobby Danger and birthday boy Skidog (the big four-o!) at the Peruvian maze around 7:45. A line was already quickly forming behind us.
Nevertheless the line didn't get much bigger than that. I'm guessing that not too many got the memo about the early opening.
We loaded the day's 7th chair just as the morning sun crested the Wildcat ridgeline. "Be gone, evil star!" Skidog angrily ordered. As if on cue the upper mountain was socked in. I guess when it's your birthday you get privileges like that.
Upon disembarking we headed straight for Upper Silver Fox as Mineral wasn't yet ready. This stuff skied like three feet of graupel. Not manky or snotty at all, it was perfectly smooth and with fat skis you were skiing pretty much just the top three inches or so. It was amazingly good, especially so for the latter half of May.
It wasn't until you reached, say, Middle Men's Downhill that things got wetter. By the time you hit the lower mountain it felt more like spring slush, but no matter -- we'd stay up high for the goods.
By the time we got back atop Peruvian the tunnel was open (walking only, no magic carpet) so we headed straight over. We hung a hard left and headed out to the lower half of Chamonix 1, but lower down the lower Chamonix Chutes beneath the closed Baldy Express were divine. I took the line furthest to skier's left which didn't yet have a single track in it. You could just arc through this stuff, it was smooth as a baby's bottom. Perfectly even, perfectly smooth, perfectly consistent. Bobby proclaimed it his best run through there all season and I can't disagree.
A run down Hyena Ridge showed that the east-facing stuff was already starting to wet a bit so we headed for the other side. It was shocking to discover that no one was skiing Regulator! Honestly, you could ski top to bottom on either side of the groomer and not cross a single track the whole way. What's that tagline again? Perfectly even, perfectly smooth, perfectly consistent. And on this side the snow would stay cold and relatively dry for a few more hours.
Hard to believe that we'd enjoyed so much fine skiing already and it was still only 9:15 a.m. We decided to head out the Cirque Traverse, heading to somewhere around Lone Pine or Wilbere Bowl but were distracted when we arrived atop Shot 1 Route 5 to find it barely tracked. It was completely untracked along the ropeline and that was too good to pass up. Skidog shot some action pics in there and I'm looking forward to seeing those.
We had to find a way down from there so we cut across Anderson's and Dalton's to reach Mach Schnell. That was nothing but wet avalanche debris topped by much wetter snow this low on the mountain, a combo which turned out to be a big mistake for me. That was survival skiing. Bobby and Skidog continued across Rothman Way while I opted for the one cat wide groomer down Wilbere Ridge to get back to Peruvian.
Back up the lift, back through the tunnel and into Mineral. With some creative skiing we could reach Ski Patrol Gully without crossing a ropeline and we were absolutely, positively the first folks back there, carving big arcs through unblemished snow.
We headed back up to Hidden Peak and hit a not yet tracked Macaroni Chute, dropping through North Chute and onto the Cool Whip traverse for another shot at the mid-Cirque.
By now it was time for me to head back to the car to take care of errands in the Valley.
I lost track of how much snow fell this week but it was something on the order of three feet or maybe a bit more. Snowbird's YTD snowfall total is now up to 755 inches, and the Alta Collins plot this morning was still showing a settled snow depth of 195" (Snowbird's is "only" 183 inches at the Gad 2 snow plot) three weeks into May. :shock:
I wasn't sure, though, of what to expect from the new snow today. The storm wound down during the day yesterday but Snowbird never opened, ostensibly because of avalanche concerns from the heavy, wet new snow. I'm guessing that anticipated Friday crowds in mid-May didn't justify the expenditure of stabilizing that stuff. Better to let it settle for a day first.
Which at a minimum meant that it would be untracked today. But what consistency? Snowbird opened an hour earlier than usual at 8 a.m., and said publicly that they may close around noon as daytime heating really kicked in. I met up with Bobby Danger and birthday boy Skidog (the big four-o!) at the Peruvian maze around 7:45. A line was already quickly forming behind us.
Nevertheless the line didn't get much bigger than that. I'm guessing that not too many got the memo about the early opening.
We loaded the day's 7th chair just as the morning sun crested the Wildcat ridgeline. "Be gone, evil star!" Skidog angrily ordered. As if on cue the upper mountain was socked in. I guess when it's your birthday you get privileges like that.
Upon disembarking we headed straight for Upper Silver Fox as Mineral wasn't yet ready. This stuff skied like three feet of graupel. Not manky or snotty at all, it was perfectly smooth and with fat skis you were skiing pretty much just the top three inches or so. It was amazingly good, especially so for the latter half of May.
It wasn't until you reached, say, Middle Men's Downhill that things got wetter. By the time you hit the lower mountain it felt more like spring slush, but no matter -- we'd stay up high for the goods.
By the time we got back atop Peruvian the tunnel was open (walking only, no magic carpet) so we headed straight over. We hung a hard left and headed out to the lower half of Chamonix 1, but lower down the lower Chamonix Chutes beneath the closed Baldy Express were divine. I took the line furthest to skier's left which didn't yet have a single track in it. You could just arc through this stuff, it was smooth as a baby's bottom. Perfectly even, perfectly smooth, perfectly consistent. Bobby proclaimed it his best run through there all season and I can't disagree.
A run down Hyena Ridge showed that the east-facing stuff was already starting to wet a bit so we headed for the other side. It was shocking to discover that no one was skiing Regulator! Honestly, you could ski top to bottom on either side of the groomer and not cross a single track the whole way. What's that tagline again? Perfectly even, perfectly smooth, perfectly consistent. And on this side the snow would stay cold and relatively dry for a few more hours.
Hard to believe that we'd enjoyed so much fine skiing already and it was still only 9:15 a.m. We decided to head out the Cirque Traverse, heading to somewhere around Lone Pine or Wilbere Bowl but were distracted when we arrived atop Shot 1 Route 5 to find it barely tracked. It was completely untracked along the ropeline and that was too good to pass up. Skidog shot some action pics in there and I'm looking forward to seeing those.
We had to find a way down from there so we cut across Anderson's and Dalton's to reach Mach Schnell. That was nothing but wet avalanche debris topped by much wetter snow this low on the mountain, a combo which turned out to be a big mistake for me. That was survival skiing. Bobby and Skidog continued across Rothman Way while I opted for the one cat wide groomer down Wilbere Ridge to get back to Peruvian.
Back up the lift, back through the tunnel and into Mineral. With some creative skiing we could reach Ski Patrol Gully without crossing a ropeline and we were absolutely, positively the first folks back there, carving big arcs through unblemished snow.
We headed back up to Hidden Peak and hit a not yet tracked Macaroni Chute, dropping through North Chute and onto the Cool Whip traverse for another shot at the mid-Cirque.
By now it was time for me to head back to the car to take care of errands in the Valley.
SMOOOOOOOTHER than good vermouth !!!!!!! i.m.o. it's probably good that the bird didn't open yesterday we would have had to deal with old tracks from yesterday . as one could tell there was some pretty good slide activity the past couple days buried under a foot to fifteen inches of new snow . slopes that didn't normally slide had moved for example adager had a slide from just below rothmans way to the flats on the bottom of lower silver fox . the lower chamonix chutes under baldy express chair were of the highest quality snow (smooooooth and just throw yourself at it speeds ) regulator johnson was exactly the same only slightly colder snow temps . the groomers just sucked - snowbird must have hired a grad straight out of grooming school !!!!. upper gad valley was closed west of little cloud chair so you know what i'll be looking for in the morn.- upper baldy never got open (l.t.d. looks smOOOOOOOOOther than anything on the planet really ) all out underneath south facing baldy is just off the scale on the quality issues - no knuckle head traverse so the entire lower half of the mtn. over there isn't skied or boarded (that should cook into supportable snow by morning )- sunday cliffs out beyond hillaries step didn't slide and was never opened up . there seems to be a commitment to later in the season from snowbird to be open if possible but not alot of commitment to anything else . i don't go up to ski groomers but those groomers would have scared the bajesus out of a beginner this morning .
