One of the best mornings of the year? I heard this repeated a number of times while riding a chair, passing people waiting in line, or sitting at my locker after skiing. It is difficult to remember each and every great day of this season, and certainly even more difficult to rate a particular morning against others, but today was an excellent day.
First runs down Sympathy
Blue sky greeted me when I opened my eyes this morning. It was a pleasant change to the weather we have been continually fed this spring. Good visibility lasted until lunch when the grayness returned. Enough snow to cover yesterday’s tracks and any underlying firmness, perhaps between 4″ and 6″, fell overnight. It was a mini powder morning. Fresh tracks could be set anywhere on the mountain. The number of people on the mountain was somewhat minimal between 8am and 10am. The upper parking lot was nearly full by noon as was the mountain, but during the early hours we felt like we were heli-skiing.
Few tracks below us as we stood enjoying the view of Grouse Rock from far out on the west side of South Face
The first few runs we spent on Roundhouse as Summit opened late plus a cloud was hanging over the upper portion of the mountain. We left our marks on Sympathy, Yellow Trail (it was not groomed), and on Chicken Leg and variations of this area. We were all by our selves enjoying Standard, Mountain View, and Scott Meadow before heading to Sherwood. There were more people skiing Sherwood. South Face was being well used, but we were still able to find fresh tracks on the far west slopes of South Face.
A little later in the morning we skied Counter Weight Gully and Art’s Knob. Both of these runs had been well skied by the time we made use of them. The snow covering those trails was beginning to clump up as the temperature increased.
One of our happy moments was finding fresh tracks on Outer Limits. This required hiking up to the top of Lakeview from Scott Chair, but it was worth the climb.
Looking back at Outer Limits after leaving out mark on the slope
Fresh soft snow put smiles on those I skied with this morning. An excellent May 7, 2023 spring day.
One of the lift operators manning the bottom of Roundhouse used his spare time to create a number of snow sculptures. He created these a couple of days ago. The attached photo was taken by Patty Robbins.
Enjoy you day,
Andy
And here is that picture of Pete in full size:
That was a spectacular day for being May. I picked up first, second and third tracks in Chicken Leg this morning…then various other areas around Roundhouse before moving to Scott. Everything else had been cooked by 10 am but everything between Standard and Mountain View was excellent pow with few tracks from even yesterday….no hiking required.
I went to Olympic Valley in the AM with my 2 boys since they had never been there. It was a zoo. At 10:30 my oldest suggested going to Alpine after Granite closed due to a slide and Shirley was nuts crowded. I was able to find a spot and get to the hill. The comment I got was, “we should have come here in the first place”. Proud Dad Moment. It was the first time I saw the new B2B Gondola. That thing sure is ugly, It makes KT face look crowded with the cross over. The top of KT looks busy with the giant mid station and oh lord what have you done to the bottom of Alpine. The big building looks as large as the lodge and makes it difficult to get over to Tree Line Cirque. The 65 million scenic ride. Ugh. On the positive side the idea of replacing Yellow and ABC with one chair sounds delightful. Hoping to get one more day at Alpine. Thanks Mark and Andy.