No Fooling Around

There’s no April Fool jokes here today. I mean, I guess it’s funny that I have operated all day on three hours of sleep. The skiing part was relatively easy. Engaging my brain to write about ski conditions seems pretty easy. Asking my brain to analyze weather, past and present, I can do it, after a cup of coffee. But firing up that creative part of my brain just will not be happening today.

Edit: ChatGPT to the rescue…I added a sample in the 4th comment below.

Here’s where I was 36 hours ago, enjoying a quality sunset on Keawakapu Beach, after a day of beach reads and bodysurfing:

Here I was this morning, enjoying the equally spectacular view from the top of Summit, albeit about 60° cooler:

One part of that transition that was least enjoyable was shoving sunburned feet into ski boots. But all went well, except I don’t think anyone mentioned that it got kind of warm the last two days. That first run Sunspot this morning was a bit sketchy in firm conditions as my brain shifted from catching waves to skiing small frozen bumps.

I made better choices after that, remembering that several people mentioned over the last few days how well Pygmy Forest and the Palisades zone has been skiing. I didn’t even go that far, making my next several runs right down the ABC chair line. That windblown powder did not disappoint.

Unfortunately, the mountain was über busy today, and I tired of the Summit line and the flat light due to increasing clouds. Elsewhere on the mountain we just could not recreate that experience. In the Sympathy Face and Rolls N Knolls zone, the moguls were very prominent. That tells you that yesterday was exceptionally busy for a Friday. I heard the parking lots filled. Down in the frequently good Yellow zone, the opposite was true. The off piste snow was not skied in enough, feeling more like heavy chunder.

After lunch, I figured that a mountain tour was in order. Evidence of a couple of freeze thaw cycles was present, with the groomed runs having a somewhat corny texture. The problem was there wasn’t enough sun to loosen it up with pretty solid cloud cover. What did loosen up was quickly scraped away by large amounts of traffic. That same condition existed at Sherwood, Lakeview and Scott.

Tomorrow could improve slightly. The storm system that is moving in will take it’s time. If we are lucky we will see a couple of inches of new snow overnight and during the day tomorrow. A few more inches could fall Sunday night. The ensemble forecasts weaken this system with every run. Here’s a GIF of the last 12 runs:

Looking at the long term, we stay in a “dirty ridge” position for the next couple of weeks according to the models today. What that means is that we won’t have really warm temperatures, and weather systems will pass to our north every few days bringing the possibility of an inch or two of snow. If we get plenty of sun in-between, we get a pretty good setup for spring corn development, without getting worried about flooding snowmelt.

The PNA index has been in negative territory for about five weeks with just a couple of days excepted. The weather geeks are already calling for a strong to very strong El Niño for next season. Comparisons are already being made to 81-82 being huge (569 inches*), followed by the huger 82-82 season (598 inches*).  *from the official measurements at the base of Roundhouse.

I took a peak at this seasons records, with one month to go, as the seasonal records only include November through April). As of yesterday, there has been 593.5 inches of snowfall at the base area. Only three years beat that: 82-83 (598″), 10-11 (615.5″) and 94-95 (662″). I am confident that we should exceed 615 inches, but not confident we will reach 662 inches by the end of the month.

If Only There Was Some Method To Organize People Waiting For A Lift To Open…

I’m just going to come out and say it, it was a junkshow at Summit this morning. When I walked out to get in line at 8:50, there were about 50 people waiting to get through the RFID gates, extending well back up the runout. By the time the RFID gates were opened at 9:00am, there were at least another 50 people behind me. Suddenly they were all rushing down the hill and attempting to navigate the green fenced area to make a neat 90° pivot to get through the gates and rush to the chair. At the same time, another 50 people didn’t bother getting in line and they were just trying to push in from the side. It was utterly ridiculous, and unsafe, which is why I bring it up. Meanwhile, there’s all sorts of fencing and ropes setup that could have prevented that chaos.

I get it. At some point in the past, skiers and riders in the queue got unruly, probably bickering over first chair. Some employee tried to manage that and found out it is not fun to manage that crowd. So instead of dealing with the problem, they avoid it by keeping people outside of the corral so it’s not their problem. It’s kind of like that teacher that we all had that frequently punished the whole class rather than facing up to that one difficult child. Heck, I may have even been that teacher once in awhile! But when it creates an unsafe situation, that is not okay. Please deal directly with the people that cause a problem. Blacklist some passes, and make a big scenes about it, so others can learn from that. That’s the end of my TED talk. It’s great to be back on the snow.