Since Liz resumed skiing after COVID, this was only the second sunny day out of eight. Here was the view down to the resort from the top of the mountain.
Sun Valley’s name is usually apt, but when it gets snow it usually comes through Tahoe first from the SW. So no surprise Sun Valley was at 144% of normal snowfall at the end of March. There was considerable piled snow in Ketchum, rare this late in the season, but like most of the western US Sun Valley had a continuously wintry March.
Some of that snow was recent including 5 inches Thursday and 18 in the past 3 days. So after a 2,600 vertical warmup on Ridge to Cutoff to Canyon, I had to check out the lightly tracked bowls.
While the snow was getting heavy in direct spring sun, there was zero crust as it must have been cloudy and snowy the past few days. I skied the ridgeline between Lookout and Easter Bowls first. Easter:
Lookout and Seattle Ridge in background:
View from the Lookout/Easter ridge to the top of the mountain:
Sun Valley’s bowls are about 2,000 vertical. The last 500 or so funnel into gullies that were thoroughly churned so I skied those lazily to save energy.
The Seattle Ridge lift and Lodge were closed, but by skiing Sigi’s Bowl and a catwalk we could reach the lower 2/3 of the Seattle ridge groomers, of which we skied Christin’s Silver. I went back up the Mayday lift for one more run skier’s right of Easter Bowl, after which my legs were fairly beat. I cruised down to the new Broadway lift, then rode it and Christmas to the top. Overview of the bowls from the Broadway lift:
Most of the skier’s left runs on the Warm Springs side were roped off for the US Alpine Nationals being held over the weekend of April 1-2. Some kind of preliminary benefit race event was on lower Warm Springs Friday.
We later learned that some of the racers wore costumes, which explains some of Friday’s sightings.
We skied 2 top to bottom Warm Springs runs, Limelight and Flying Squirrel to Arnold’s. Arnold’s is presumably named for the Governator who has had a home in Sun Valley for decades. He was known for routinely skiing 30+K of nonstop mogul runs per day in the 1980’s. Arnold’s run is usually moguls but had lots of overlooked fresh snow today.
At 1PM we met professional photographer Karl Weatherly, whom I first met in NASJA in 1999 and who has lived in Sun Valley for 28 years.
He drove us out to his house in a valley on the west side of Baldy.
Much of Baldy’s west side burned in a fire in 2013. Karl has skied that 3,000 vertical slackcountry powder into his backyard 17x this season. Friday would have been a good day for #18 but Karl was busy packing for a 2 month RV trip and only had time for our afternoon visit.
Karl drove us back to Warm Springs where we rode to the top and skied College and River Run back to our car on the other side of the mountain. We skied 19,400 vertical, about 3K of powder.
Sun Valley’s name is usually apt, but when it gets snow it usually comes through Tahoe first from the SW. So no surprise Sun Valley was at 144% of normal snowfall at the end of March. There was considerable piled snow in Ketchum, rare this late in the season, but like most of the western US Sun Valley had a continuously wintry March.
Some of that snow was recent including 5 inches Thursday and 18 in the past 3 days. So after a 2,600 vertical warmup on Ridge to Cutoff to Canyon, I had to check out the lightly tracked bowls.
While the snow was getting heavy in direct spring sun, there was zero crust as it must have been cloudy and snowy the past few days. I skied the ridgeline between Lookout and Easter Bowls first. Easter:
Lookout and Seattle Ridge in background:
View from the Lookout/Easter ridge to the top of the mountain:
Sun Valley’s bowls are about 2,000 vertical. The last 500 or so funnel into gullies that were thoroughly churned so I skied those lazily to save energy.
The Seattle Ridge lift and Lodge were closed, but by skiing Sigi’s Bowl and a catwalk we could reach the lower 2/3 of the Seattle ridge groomers, of which we skied Christin’s Silver. I went back up the Mayday lift for one more run skier’s right of Easter Bowl, after which my legs were fairly beat. I cruised down to the new Broadway lift, then rode it and Christmas to the top. Overview of the bowls from the Broadway lift:
Most of the skier’s left runs on the Warm Springs side were roped off for the US Alpine Nationals being held over the weekend of April 1-2. Some kind of preliminary benefit race event was on lower Warm Springs Friday.
We later learned that some of the racers wore costumes, which explains some of Friday’s sightings.
We skied 2 top to bottom Warm Springs runs, Limelight and Flying Squirrel to Arnold’s. Arnold’s is presumably named for the Governator who has had a home in Sun Valley for decades. He was known for routinely skiing 30+K of nonstop mogul runs per day in the 1980’s. Arnold’s run is usually moguls but had lots of overlooked fresh snow today.
At 1PM we met professional photographer Karl Weatherly, whom I first met in NASJA in 1999 and who has lived in Sun Valley for 28 years.
He drove us out to his house in a valley on the west side of Baldy.
Much of Baldy’s west side burned in a fire in 2013. Karl has skied that 3,000 vertical slackcountry powder into his backyard 17x this season. Friday would have been a good day for #18 but Karl was busy packing for a 2 month RV trip and only had time for our afternoon visit.
Karl drove us back to Warm Springs where we rode to the top and skied College and River Run back to our car on the other side of the mountain. We skied 19,400 vertical, about 3K of powder.
