No Complaints Today

I missed skiing Christmas day and even the 10″ to 12″ of new powder yesterday. Perhaps it was the high winds and number of lifts on wind hold in the morning that caused me to think twice about venturing out on a Saturday even though I was pretty sure the skiing would be darn good.

However, I did not miss today. Winds were light this morning and overnight temperatures remained well below freezing. The combination of cold weather and low winds meant the surface would be soft. Indeed, it was lovely winter pack with hidden patches of untracked, or at least less tracked, snow for me to leave my squiggly marks for no one in particular to see. Moguls were soft, all though fairly large in many places.

My favorite little spots today included winding through the trees just off the top of Treeline Cirque, picking my way through the moguls in Expert Shortcut attempting to avoid rocks and tops of small trees, turn over and around the small soft moguls in Alpine Bowl and below Palisades, and just skiing on the far skiers left of Wolverine Bowl and powering down the Face which is well bumped.

I can tell you where the worst run of the day occurred for me. We rode Scott Chair, my first ride up for the season, and headed down Bobby’s Run. It turns out that snow was made on Bobby’s Run which was wet when it landed on the existing pack. It froze nicely leaving a very firm surface which was the exact opposite of the rest of he mountain. I was told by others that Ridge Run was about the same. There was no need to repeat this trail today.

There was sunshine for part of the day, but thin clouds are now turning blue to gray. There is some hope for a little more snow tonight and/or tomorrow, but the forecast I read did not call for much. No matter what happens tomorrow, today was excellent, uplifting, and hopeful. I play to be optimistic and look forward to a great ski season.

Enjoy your day,

Andy