Tahoe got quite a bit more from this storm than Mammoth. Kirkwood is now at 713 inches for the season and likely to hold onto its lead over Alta.
Here's a report from Carey Dickerman, who lives in Monterey and usually gives up skiing in favor of windsurfing around this time of year:
I've had some epic days this season, but Saturday 09 April takes the cake. It wasn't that the snow was deeper or drier than other powder days this season, Squaw had reported 4-6" new Thu and then 8-10" Friday, it was that the skier density was too low to track it out quickly as in the Winter. Don't get me wrong, some areas did track out quickly, like KT was tracked-out by 1030 and Headwall similarly. But the stretch between Red Dog and Squaw Creek was unfettered and I was getting fresh nearly top to bottom on consecutive runs. I don't remember doing that since heli-skiing in BC. It was hysterical having plumes blast over my shoulders and in my face with such frequency. This was true ski-gasms to the max. The reason for Saturday's inefficiency to track-out some of the best tree skiing at Squaw was a closed chairlift between Red Dog and Squaw creek, requiring a small (trivial for the reward) traverse at the bottom to get back to the chairs.
Though modest, I noticed the bases in the Rockies are at their peaks. I talked to a friend recently who has been at Vail and Taos recently and was pretty ecstatic about the conditions. This guy is typically a whiner and he claimed the conditions at Taos were the best he had seen since the 90s.
Well that's a great ending for my ski season! Time to shift gears into windsurfing. Coastal Spring gales beckon me...
Here's a report from Carey Dickerman, who lives in Monterey and usually gives up skiing in favor of windsurfing around this time of year:
I've had some epic days this season, but Saturday 09 April takes the cake. It wasn't that the snow was deeper or drier than other powder days this season, Squaw had reported 4-6" new Thu and then 8-10" Friday, it was that the skier density was too low to track it out quickly as in the Winter. Don't get me wrong, some areas did track out quickly, like KT was tracked-out by 1030 and Headwall similarly. But the stretch between Red Dog and Squaw Creek was unfettered and I was getting fresh nearly top to bottom on consecutive runs. I don't remember doing that since heli-skiing in BC. It was hysterical having plumes blast over my shoulders and in my face with such frequency. This was true ski-gasms to the max. The reason for Saturday's inefficiency to track-out some of the best tree skiing at Squaw was a closed chairlift between Red Dog and Squaw creek, requiring a small (trivial for the reward) traverse at the bottom to get back to the chairs.
Though modest, I noticed the bases in the Rockies are at their peaks. I talked to a friend recently who has been at Vail and Taos recently and was pretty ecstatic about the conditions. This guy is typically a whiner and he claimed the conditions at Taos were the best he had seen since the 90s.
Well that's a great ending for my ski season! Time to shift gears into windsurfing. Coastal Spring gales beckon me...