tuesday 2/13 report

[skiadikt]

another chilly battleship grey day. very light turnout. 9-12 shift.

for the most part the mtn has put humpty (not that humpty) back together again. skiing ranged from fair to good. highline flat & fast for sure but skied well at the bell as did the other snowdon main lines. upper bunny the best. LEF continues to ski surprisingly well. did a peek-to-creek (via bear trax) and it was mostly good other than hairpin which is very thin.

bear was ok at best. a mix of sand, chunks & ice in some spots. it's faired the worst since the warmup. upper burst eh. lower claw very sandy. preferred the firmness of lower wildfire. best was stash>dream. cruise good. panic/needles closed for racing. bitter was more of the chunks, sand & ice.

middle lark skied well. lower was ungroomed. gs bumps w ice in between. love getting slingshoted onto to supe via that narrow chute, then searching for some snow to make the 1st turn on. after that skied nicely until lower preston's which has lots of frozen groomer trax. closed just after noon on cascade which was rather skied off.

all lifts ran fine and surprisingly the canyon was running. maybe they decided to run that in lieu of the SR.

[rogman]

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, eh Skiadkt? It wasn't very good. At all. Mostly sand with a side of chunks on the Bear Side, although the Park Crew did a pretty good job with Stash and Lower Dream maker. They finally decided to groom lower Wildfire (both it and lower Skyelark were brick yards yesterday), not bad. Best was Needles immediately post KMS rope drop: soft and edgeable. Felt like actual snow. Did they truck it in? The Gondi stopped long enough on the ride out that I thought better of a second pass. Needles chair has been chugging away the last few days. I know there's some "run the lift for a long time tests" that have to be done before they can run full speed. Presumably they're getting those out of the way; load test appears to still be on hold. Reasonable crowd for a Tuesday, IMO. Scattered flakes but storm's a bust here. The app had the Canyon Quad as "scheduled", the web page said it was closed. I should have guessed it would be the third option, open. The South Ridge remains an unfulfilled promise.

[skiadikt]

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, eh Skiadkt? It wasn't very good. At all. Mostly sand with a side of chunks on the Bear Side, although the Park Crew did a pretty good job with Stash and Lower Dream maker. They finally decided to groom lower Wildfire (both it and lower Skyelark were brick yards yesterday), not bad. Best was Needles immediately post KMS rope drop: soft and edgeable. Felt like actual snow. Did they truck it in? The Gondi stopped long enough on the ride out that I thought better of a second pass. Needles chair has been chugging away the last few days. I know there's some "run the lift for a long time tests" that have to be done before they can run full speed. Presumably they're getting those out of the way; load test appears to still be on hold. Reasonable crowd for a Tuesday, IMO. Scattered flakes but storm's a bust here. The app had the Canyon Quad as "scheduled", the web page said it was closed. I should have guessed it would be the third option, open. The South Ridge remains an unfulfilled promise.

uh read this again - "bear was ok at best. a mix of sand, chunks & ice in some spots. it's faired the worst since the warmup. upper burst eh. lower claw very sandy. preferred the firmness of lower wildfire. best was stash>dream. cruise good. panic/needles closed for racing. bitter was more of the chunks, sand & ice." not sure how you read that as an overwhelming endorsement. essentially we both said the same thing about bear.

but overall thought it an improvement over the previous 2 days. snowdon skied very well at the bell. called it where i thought it was good and where it wasn't.

[Atomic1]

After skiing the boney trails and ice the last few days I had to go back to Conn. today to clear a foot of snow.. Geesh..

[rogman]

skiing ranged from fair to good

That's generous. Kind of a bare minimum of what's required type recovery; they are capable doing it faster and better.

[Captain Hafski]

Afternoon Report: Meh ! Very flat light most of the day with a bit of clearing for our last run. Hard to complain about the official K report today if you read it. They actually quoted me with a reference to Technical Skiing!

Decided to hit the "South" and Supe side today, with an SD6 start, so LEF opener - Decent as it has been past few days. No problem getting speed to get across K1 to Supe chair.

Wife sent me down Old Supe [and then followed me]. Icy with not much else to it. Mid Supe OK and then I thought Lower Skyelark [pretty much how SA described it] was ROTD. If nothing else, the ice was smooth and the small bumps did not have frozen ski tracks in them. Caveat: I tuned the skis in the garage before going out today. Earned a repeat later in the day. Wife thought Lower Bitter was OK.

Over the back to Stash -> Dream Maker. Pretty good, as expected, though very last pitch before the "pipe" was icy. Back up for Skyeburst -> Lower Wildfire [at least I was smart enough not to try Upper WF]; Upper Skyeburst chunky monkey with some half bread loaf sized pieces. Lower Wildfire decent. Wife said Lower Burst was sandy.

Stash -> Lower Cruise was best groomer of the day. Then Panic [very good actually] -> Needle's Eye OK though I didn't find the velvet that Rogman found. Of course, then I got suckered into Lower Stitchline and WROTD; frozen in ski tracks was the predominant surface condition. It should be better now that I shaved this down a bit with the freshly sharpened skis !

Back up Supe where I agree with SA about the mini luge run -> a kicker -> into the Supe HW. At least didn't have to hike up the glacier.

Closing bell run at Snowdon figured I try Conclusion, shown all day as being open, but it was closed. WTF. Can't believe they can't get accurate lift / trail status right. Mouse Run was very good and Highline OK.

Thinking about Bush tomorrow to ski some different hardpack.

[DES]

Hard to complain about the official K report today if you read it. They actually quoted me with a reference to Technical Skiing!

Early report said “Stellar…”

they and I have different definitions of that

[MrsG]

Headed to Bear from Snowshed! Did everything groomed - vis a challenge in spots! A combination of marbles, sandy and some soft snow. Most trails surface was good, but vis put a damper on the fun factor! Watched a guy bail off Dreamaker to Skyburst - found out why! The pipe was totally flat light - did not know if you were going up or down! Cruise from top decent and probably our ROTD!