Summit Chair: Yeah, It’s Awesome

There was certainly some pent up demand for Summit Chair’s first opening of the season. People were reportedly starting to line up around 8:15. When I arrived in the parking lot, people were running through the parking lot and the breezeway to get in line. By 8:45, the corral was full and the line extended past the RFID gates. That was actually misleading because the corral was “fun sized” today, with one row each for six packs, doubles and singles.

We skipped the chaos of the first run and took a quick lap on Roundhouse. We arrived back to the Summit corral with just a minimal line for our second lap. Our group of mountain veterans didn’t have to work too hard to find fun powder lines on that second lap. The snow was reasonably light, given that snow levels during the last storm barely made it to Highway 89. Throughout the next hour, the Summit line expanded and contracted like an accordion, causing us to seek out some other fun terrain off of Hotter Wheels and Roundhouse.

The groomers were riding pretty firm today, but there were some deliciously soft small bumps to be found on Red Ridge, Charity and other locations on the lower mountain. Eventually we worked our way back to Summit, finding that mountain hosts Dave and Rob were keeping the line flowing fast. It seemed to take just a few minutes to get from the gate to the chair. While there was little fresh powder to found without significant hiking in the second hour, the cut up powder in Wolverine and the D’s was sure a lot of fun.

Next up, according to the Twitterverse, is Sherwood, expected to open on Wednesday. The good news is that KT-22 is also expected for Wednesday. That should cut down on the crowds for Sherwood. Today’s temperatures were relatively cold. Hopefully things remain cool tomorrow so things don’t get too cooked on the Sherwood side before it opens. A small system overnight on Tuesday is not expected to bring no more than an inch or so of snow.

Enjoy that inch of snow midweek, as the following storm is not looking like the kind of thing we would like to see. Currently, the models are calling for snow levels to rise to 8,000 or 9,000 feet from Thursday into Saturday. Fortunately, the models are showing less than an inch of moisture at this time, so we are NOT talking gully-washer, melting snow, flooding the streets scenarios. As of now, forecasters say snow levels will crash at the tail end of the system, leaving some new snow. It’s too early to talk about timing yet.