Delightful

Somewhere around a foot of snow fell between yesterday morning and this morning. Most lifts opened at 9am to a modest crowd. It was not long before loud voices could be heard from different parts of the mountain as skiers and boarders voiced their joy with the new snow.
The air varied between 25 at the base and 17 at the top at the opening bell. It warmed as the day moved along. Winds were stiff at the top of Summit (30 to 40), but not really an issue at the top of any other lift. The sky varied between short spurts of sun and blue, to gray with occasional showers of snow falling.

First tracks down The Face

We never ventured up Summit because we found plenty of runs where we could paint fresh tracks in the new snow. I heard a number of different descriptions of the snow as I was standing in line at one lift or another. By the way, the lines were minimal for most of the day. It seemed to me that the younger crowd used words like epic and awesome, while the older crowd tended to describe it as excellent, very good, and delicious, but not epic. I found the snow in the trees to be softer than the snow that had been blown around by winds. In the open areas snow was denser than it was in the trees. You would not have gotten a face shot today, but you would have had a smile on your face. There were a number of slides visible this morning. Sympathy Face slid as did High Yellow Face, and a section of Scott Chute. High Yellow Face slid into Howard’s Hollow and almost reached the base of Alpine Bowl Chair.

Morning slide on Sympathy Face

The debris was not made of large chunks of hard snow. Instead it was a mass of smaller and softer rubble on which one could ski. Thus, as slopes were skied they transformed into a nicely skier packed surface. This was true of Our Father and High Yellow. Chicken Leg was sweet first run down from Roundhouse, but Gentian was even sweeter. We made a few trips up Scott Chair to ski Gentian, Promised Land, Standard Run, and Seldom Slides. Later we traversed over to the lower section of Mountain View where blank snow greeted us. Lakeview was not operating today so trails in the area were not well traveled allowing us to scratch them up on our way to Sherwood. I skied Shuttle Cornice crossed the return road from Sherwood to TLC and then dropped through trees to Lakeview. Nice deep soft snow met my skis on this untraveled slope.

The sun was not out when we skied Promised Land

Nice smooth skier pack on Our Father

Today was not an Epic Day, but it was an excellent day. One regular Alpine Skier indicated skiing the untracked snow was like skiing the foam in her Chai Latte. It is hard to say if it was one of the better days of the season because there have been so many, but the fact that most lifts opened at 9am and lift lines were not excessive puts it high on the list.

Enjoy your day,

Andy