wednesday 12/20 report

[skiadikt]

wake of the flood. the party is definitely over ... brilliant sunshine offset the "ok" conditions. the bluebirds flapping drowned out the roar of the snowguns. comfortable to warmish temps with an inversion in effect. friends who skied yesterday said yesterday was better as things locked up tight overnight. more typical mid-winter conditions. light turnout. 9-12 shift.

opened on the center cut snowdon run which pretty much set the tone for the session. flat, fast, edgeable concrete. highline next was surprisingly good but the trail gets uncomfortably narrow in a spot or two on fast conditions. LEF ok but not quite as good. NR was decent as they made a lot of snow up there (in many places on that side).

mid-supe ok but skipped lower as frozen cat trax wasn't our thing. skye/bitter route good. again flat, fast & hard. and the snowmaking trails where wet guns were the rule. will start w the better - cruise. stickyish snow particularly the "swamp" just past snowshed xover which nailed some unsuspecting skiers. the ugly was high road. very sticky. to be fair, they were making snow at the upper limit, particularly at that elevation.

returned to highline 2 more times. second it was showing some wear and a third right around noon thinking it had softened in the sun. it didn't. overall the mtn did an admirable bouncing back from a really tough weather event as mother nature threw one of her hissy fits. they have recovered all the snowmaking terrain, so it's forward from here until the next one ...

[PinnacleJim]

My take is a bit different than skiadict. While no lifelines, the parking lots were full. Double the crowd of yesterday. Yes some slick conditions to be found, but also some examples of decent overnight grooming. I made multiple runs down Cruise and High Road in the afternoon. Sking under the guns is not my favorite thing to do, but I saw no sign of the wet sticky snow mentioned above. The sunshine and lack of wind made for a decent day.

[Big Bob]

My take is a bit different than skiadict. While no lifelines, the parking lots were full. Double the crowd of yesterday. Yes some slick conditions to be found, but also some examples of decent overnight grooming. I made multiple runs down Cruise and High Road in the afternoon. Sking under the guns is not my favorite thing to do, but I saw no sign of the wet sticky snow mentioned above. The sunshine and lack of wind made for a decent day.

Some folks ski the week before Christmas week now to avoid the crowds of the normal holiday period.

[skiadikt]

My take is a bit different than skiadict. While no lifelines, the parking lots were full. Double the crowd of yesterday. Yes some slick conditions to be found, but also some examples of decent overnight grooming. I made multiple runs down Cruise and High Road in the afternoon. Sking under the guns is not my favorite thing to do, but I saw no sign of the wet sticky snow mentioned above. The sunshine and lack of wind made for a decent day.

could well have been the difference between hitting cc & hr just after the 10 am opening. probably better once it got skied in, but after one run on each, we were done. as i said, some skiers hitting the gun just below the snowshed xover were crashing. ambassadors we talked to were aware of it. maybe it got fixed and adjusted. that's why i usually post the shift time, because as we all know conditions can change quite a bit during the day.

[Captain Hafski]

Afternoon Report: Not epic. Butt, found two things to enjoy.

ROTD: Late Day Cruise Control. Nothing special getting from Supe chair to where the guns were blowing, but I've seen that section worse. Pretty decent "under" the guns, especially the air hogs that started about at Shagback [or is it SS X'over?]. Staying right [for the extra RM Hang Time!] was OK for a while and then the cover ran out. Butt, more in the middle, were some decent bumps that had formed along with a patch of glare here and there. Even after the air hogs changed places with the Low E guns was OK at the bottom leading to the Skyeship.

Only other trail of note was Rime. Upper was flat and fast butt on the lower pitch the 3rd line of bumps was pretty good benefiting from the pushed to the side new snow that they blew yesterday. Wouldn't want to get caught in the 1st or 2nd line though, for the most part. Did several runs on it.

LEF begged you to swap ski poles for hockey sticks. Butt, I've seen it worse. Didn't attempt Supe. Most of Skye Lark was OK but icier and icier as you went down the final pitch.

Better than expected. Also, I agree with Jim there were definitely some peeps out there today which didn't help the conditions.