Squaw Valley, CA USA 2/1/2011

[tseeb]

I got to make fresh tracks in the same eight inches from Saturday’s storm for the third day in a row as Squaw opened Silverado for the first time in weeks. The snow stayed good as high on very sunny Monday was below freezing and Tuesday was colder with a dry east wind. I skied Silverado 7X before lunch and each run was at least 1/2 powder including some long untracked stretches.

From the tram - where the operator announced the word of the day is Silverado and said if you don’t what he means to ask someone and find out - I headed down Landbridge to warm up on the only groomer, but immediately could not resist the temptation and made turns in the deep untracked to skiers left of the run. Next run I traversed skier’s right at the entrance to Landbridge and found longer untracked and lightly tracked. My friend joined me on his snowboard for my middle three runs, one on skier’s right of Landbridge, then two from gate 1 which opened later than gates 6-8. A lot of Silverado is a hard place to get to and out of on a board so he could not get to all the best snow. The first run down from gate 1, we went skiers left and found very good, nearly untracked snow up high, but the powder was getting heavy and slabby near the bottom.

Next chair up, we thought they’d opened gate 2, but it was only poachers dropping into the bowls to the riders left of the chair by going under the rope high between gates 2 and 1. I also went under the rope, but much closer to open gate 1 and found the best snow of the day. I kept going in the nearly untracked too far down and had to negotiate a very icy narrow chute though the Chinese Wall. My friend went on to easier terrain while I took two more Silverado runs down Hanging Gardens which was skied heavily in the morning, but was now overlooked and somewhere I had never been.

After a break at the Arc at Gold Coast, I skied Headwall twice (Ridge Run into Cornice II, then Sun Bowl into Bullet) and KT three times (early entrance into Saddle, then past Saddle into soft snow twice) so it was an all big lift day for me. 1 Tram ride, 12 big chairs, 21K vertical and back in the Bay Area about 7:15 PM.

 

[Tony Crocker]

Silverado seems to be the least frequently open terrain at Squaw. If it's open it's likely you're in for a very good day.

 

[tseeb]

I told someone riding the chair that I had only ridden Silverado about 10 times in my life before the 7 times on Monday. This is because Silverado was not there when I last had Squaw passes 1975-77 and probably would not have opened in those drought years. Then, in the years since, it was usually not open when I mostly skied Squaw late season on tickets that people were dumping or giving away.

Coverage on Silverado was good. I hit a couple of rocks on Granite Chief on Monday (including one twice - duh), but none on Silverado where they are big enough to avoid.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Nice pix! How are crowds at Squaw on a day like that?

 

[Tony Crocker]

Squaw can have early morning, get on-the-mountain lines like Whistler. But if everything is open there are something like 7 lifts servicing exclusively expert terrain, so it's not too hard to escape crowds. I suspect Silverado rarely has much in the way of a lift line. Mountain Run can be a high density and quite unpleasant human slalom course on a busy weekend. But if Broken Arrow is open, that's a great run to take down the mountain.

I have ~300K lifetime on Squaw but have not been there since 2002. So perhaps tseeb or someone else for Northern California can correct my impressions if they are out of date.

 

[tseeb]

There was no line on Silverado (1,400 foot vertical 10 minute triple with good footrest) on Tuesday and the chair was not running full. I'm thinking chair was only half to two thirds full, but that still seemed like a lot of people moving to the three, then four, open entrances. There was enough of a line on Granite Chief (1,000 foot vertical triple without footrest that takes maybe 8 minute) that I only rode it once in the morning.

On Tuesday, I was lucky to get dropped at, then hit the tram without much wait as it only leaves every 15 minutes and gets you into Silverado without requiring a chair. My friend on a board did not hit it as well, just missing one and came up on Funitel, then slow East Broadway and still had a slow traverse to the top of Silverado. Exiting Silverado, I had a long side-stepping traverse to get to where I could ski to Gold Coast.

A lot of the best of Squaw is hard to get to and from on a board without hiking, especially if you don't know the mountain well, which makes it better for skiers.

 

[soulskier]

Squaw can have early morning, get on-the-mountain lines like Whistler. But if everything is open there are something like 7 lifts servicing exclusively expert terrain, so it's not too hard to escape crowds. I suspect Silverado rarely has much in the way of a lift line. Mountain Run can be a high density and quite unpleasant human slalom course on a busy weekend. But if Broken Arrow is open, that's a great run to take down the mountain.

I have ~300K lifetime on Squaw but have not been there since 2002. So perhaps tseeb or someone else for Northern California can correct my impressions if they are out of date.

That's an accurate observation. However, on most big powder days, Squaw stages their openings. On big powder days, it's rare when everything opens at once allowing the crowds to disperse.