EMSC
Well-known member
Not quite what I'd hoped for...
After a week of locked in +5-7F warmer than normal for this time of year we made an audible call to do WP instead of the Basin. Why? Pali steeps closed, West Zuma steeps closed, leaving only North Pole steeps still open. Plus a forecast for cooler temps with a forecast high mid-30's at the bottom of the basin. So 15-20min less driving each way, a lower base area with terrain that might actually soften up sent us to WP or technically Mary Jane. Though I hate the way the marketers have gotten away with trying to call it two separate ski areas and the media just follows along like it is. It is just One ski area.
Anyway, we didn't exactly rush up arriving about 10a and finding plenty of parking. In fact while eventually mostly full, neither of the main lots (let alone road side parking nor more the remote lots at MJ base) ever quite filled. Weather was not ideal with graupel (intense and pain in the face at times), fog, almost drizzle at one point... Frozen on the upper few hundred verts of Super Gauge and all of Panorama to start ~10:30a when we first tried it. But soft on the lower 3/4 of Super Guage terrain. So a bit of endure the top of that lift, then go anywhere you want for a bit. By noon-ish when we tried again even Pano terrain was softening nicely on the top inch or two. Probably only a few degrees above freezing up top, and mostly upper 30-s to low 40's by afternoon down bottom.
But with repeated bad light and squalls with cool breeze to boot we pulled the plug pretty early at ~1:30p after only ~15K of vertical. I had my son doing drills for a portion of the day too as this is the time of season for that if you actually want to ski race. So a few slower than normal runs/sections in that mix as well.
Much less traffic than even last weekend finally. Probably because of the cooler weather in the mtns but still ~70F+ on the flatlands. Over the past 4 weeks I'm up to 40 different state license plates, plus two Mexican states between Copper/Basin/WP and hitting the Denver metro area. It feels far above average for mix and volume of out of staters this year for some reason (probably 20% of plates on I70 this weekend were out of state for example, ignoring Uhauls and trucks).
I forgot my phone in the car to start so this was maybe 11:30ish bathroom/snack break time when I retrieved it.
Not quite chairway to heaven, but certainly not great visibility at times
~1p Pano terrain with Sunnyside lift on the ridge in the background. A couple of times blue patches appeared in the distance, but never really over us directly.
Another good visibility moment.
First time I've seen a board mounted up like this. I've seen a couple different ways for skis to be attached to a bike and driven up I70 though.
After a week of locked in +5-7F warmer than normal for this time of year we made an audible call to do WP instead of the Basin. Why? Pali steeps closed, West Zuma steeps closed, leaving only North Pole steeps still open. Plus a forecast for cooler temps with a forecast high mid-30's at the bottom of the basin. So 15-20min less driving each way, a lower base area with terrain that might actually soften up sent us to WP or technically Mary Jane. Though I hate the way the marketers have gotten away with trying to call it two separate ski areas and the media just follows along like it is. It is just One ski area.
Anyway, we didn't exactly rush up arriving about 10a and finding plenty of parking. In fact while eventually mostly full, neither of the main lots (let alone road side parking nor more the remote lots at MJ base) ever quite filled. Weather was not ideal with graupel (intense and pain in the face at times), fog, almost drizzle at one point... Frozen on the upper few hundred verts of Super Gauge and all of Panorama to start ~10:30a when we first tried it. But soft on the lower 3/4 of Super Guage terrain. So a bit of endure the top of that lift, then go anywhere you want for a bit. By noon-ish when we tried again even Pano terrain was softening nicely on the top inch or two. Probably only a few degrees above freezing up top, and mostly upper 30-s to low 40's by afternoon down bottom.
But with repeated bad light and squalls with cool breeze to boot we pulled the plug pretty early at ~1:30p after only ~15K of vertical. I had my son doing drills for a portion of the day too as this is the time of season for that if you actually want to ski race. So a few slower than normal runs/sections in that mix as well.
Much less traffic than even last weekend finally. Probably because of the cooler weather in the mtns but still ~70F+ on the flatlands. Over the past 4 weeks I'm up to 40 different state license plates, plus two Mexican states between Copper/Basin/WP and hitting the Denver metro area. It feels far above average for mix and volume of out of staters this year for some reason (probably 20% of plates on I70 this weekend were out of state for example, ignoring Uhauls and trucks).
I forgot my phone in the car to start so this was maybe 11:30ish bathroom/snack break time when I retrieved it.
Not quite chairway to heaven, but certainly not great visibility at times
~1p Pano terrain with Sunnyside lift on the ridge in the background. A couple of times blue patches appeared in the distance, but never really over us directly.
Another good visibility moment.
First time I've seen a board mounted up like this. I've seen a couple different ways for skis to be attached to a bike and driven up I70 though.
