It is About Time!

Our weather finally calmed down to give us an absolutely gorgeous day. Winds were absent this morning when Summit Chair opened, a rare occurrence these past few days. In addition, there was not a cloud in the sky. Bright sunshine provided excellent visibility as it shone from a solid blue background. Today was perhaps the first real spring day we have had this year. It was a cool morning, followed by a very warm afternoon. At 9am the temperature at the top of the mountain was 26 degrees. At 2:30pm it was 32 at the top of Summit Chair and 44 degrees at the base lodge.

Conditions at the opening offered us wonderful groomed corduroy trails, and a combination of wind packed snow and skier packed snow on the north facing slopes. The slopes also provided real Sastrugi (scoured slopes created by strong winds), a condition we have had for many days over the past couple of weeks, and wind buff (a smooth deposit of snow also created by strong winds). In a previous blog I described these conditions improperly. I was corrected by a reader. I thought I would drop a couple of photos of these conditions into today’s blog.

There were plenty of skiers and snowboarders on the hill today taking advantage of the deep snow and beautiful weather. Many of the heavily used trails appeared to be very well used today. In my opinion, they were being over used keeping me off the well groomed trails as much as possible. We skied Sunspot, Wolverine Bowl, Alpine Bowl and other groomed runs first thing in the morning in order to take advantage of the smooth corduroy, but as soon as the chair line grew, and large numbers of skies hit the same areas, we moved on to find something off groomed runs.

Trying to ski Sastrugi. Not the easiest snow to ski.

Smooth Wind Buff (we improperly described as a Snow Dune). Much easier to make tracks in this snow condition.

After making a number of trips up Roundhouse and Summit Chair we headed to Scott Chair on our way to Sherwood. The lower portion of Mountain View was pretty firm. Yesterday it did warm up in the afternoon softening south and west facing slopes. They froze overnight assuring us very firm conditions in the early morning. The line at the base of Sherwood was pretty long, but not outrageous. Robin Hood, groomed overnight, was just softening when we hit it. It was pleasant enough. We headed to South Face next and enjoyed soft spring snow down the entire run. An hour earlier it was most likely very firm and rough ride from top to bottom.

Lakeview did nothing for me this morning. The surface of Outer Limits was shaved firm snow that did not hold an edge well. Bobby’s, technically a Scott Trail, skied a little better on the right edge, but was still firm.

God’s Knob and Rolls and Knolls were still in fine condition later in the morning, as was the lower portion of Palisades. The upper area of Palisades offered good snow, but it is beginning to grow moguls.I did not ski Sunspot when my friends tore it up first run this morning, but they claimed that they had never skied a similar condition in the past. They described the surface as skiing on something like a popcorn ceiling. You know the type found in older homes. I am not sure how they know what it feels like to ski on a popcorn ceiling type surface, but that is how they described it.

The ski area was in full open mode today. All lifts were open. The only issue we saw was when Alpine Bowl Chair stopped working with patrons stuck on the chair for a goodly amount of time before the issue was corrected. All decks were filled with music, the smell of food, and people sitting enjoying the sunshine. The ice bar was open at Sherwood, the Chalet and the adjoining Alpine Kitchen were humming, and the main deck was stuffed with people listening to music and munching on their lunches.

Before I headed in for the day, I took a last run using the High Traverse to Upper Saddle. There were a lot of people hiking to Upper Saddle heading to Sherwood. A number of them were also continuing to hike through the Keyhole in order to access one of the Keyhole Slopes, Lower Saddle, or F Tree. There were also a good number of people traversing Our Father from the top of the Sherwood Chair to ski High Yellow Gully or the lower area of High Yellow Face. I hiked up the ridge from Summit chair to use a newer traverse line someone created to access Upper Saddle. This route was actually easier than side stepping to Upper Saddle from the top of Alpine Bowl Chair. Just a hint for your next trip over to the Sherwood side of the mountain vai Upper Saddle. My tour down Sun Bowl and the lower portion of CB Chute was delightful. A little soft, but good spring snow. I skied this around 1pm.