wednesday 2/21 report

[skiadikt]

pretty much a rinse and repeat day. more sunshine and warmer temps. sunny daze never get old. again a reasonable crowd on hand. 9-1 shift.

ski bum wednesday so did a number of highlines. softer than it's been. never got up top. after the race made a beeline for supe. some nice bump lines developed or you can ride the ridge. once again rotd. with the warming temps they had the guns shut down when i left. other than OL, hit everything at bear. claw>burst skied very well and the best of the groomers. stash>dream good. wildfire good even the ungroomed upper section.

dreammaker HW skied fine. cruise good. needles ok. vertigo still holding up. can still find some pow to make turns. bitter eh. lower lark better. old supe one of the few bump runs still standing. low road hard bumps but good.

finished out in the snowdon trees. tinman still has some pow. patsies picked beyond clean. more exposure than i like.

[Bubba]

Skied with the grands at Pico. Conditions excellent. Kids and adults had a ball on blues and greens. Sunny days and blue skies cures whatever ails you.

[fdskier56]

Was skyeship stage 1 really delayed until 10am as the APP showed?

All those vacationers who paid for ski on ski off on great eastern must have been thrilled when they skied down to the gondola at 9am …

Did K run extra buses to get them up to a working lift ?

[Bayfive]

First world problems

[breckkidd]

Started the day at the place where nobody goes, though I must admit I was slightly surprised at how full the lot was. Lapped all open trails off the summit. Was initially questioning the closure of upper GK but that notion immediately faded into oblivion after skiing upper Pike. In its current state it uhhh was not a re-run. The trails untouched by groomers were incredibly firm and, in some spots, quite icy. Sunset 71 was as rough as I can ever remember. A nicely groomed upper KA was the ROTD for the morning shift and the overall saving grace. Forty Niner quite nice too I must say, though quite crowded at some points. After an I Pie lunch stop headed over to K for the afternoon. Parked at Skyeship to see the state of it firsthand. Consistent with most reports throughout the season thus far, it really seems to be showing its age this year. Numerous broken cabins passed by before we got on as well as on the way up. Sad to see because for a slew of reasons but I will certainly miss the individuality of each of the cabins’ art when they are eventually replaced. Skied a soon to be closed Pipe Dream and found it to be softer than the natural snow offerings of Pico but certainly patchy and thin towards the bottom. Unfortunate that SR wasn’t running but not very surprising considering it’s a Wednesday. I was far more surprised (and kinda ticked) that the Bear quad wasn’t spinning—that didn’t make much sense to me. Bottleneck for the SPE which offered the longest line of the day (still not terrible for this week). Having been groomed, I thought Panic button might be worth a shot but found an ice waterfall where the trail was supposed to be. Middle and lower needles made up for it fortunately. Overall, Superstar was ROTD, right side was especially good. They’ve got some serious snow piling up on the middle portion this year—seems like more than in past years.

[skiadikt]

Started the day at the place where nobody goes, though I must admit I was slightly surprised at how full the lot was. Lapped all open trails off the summit. Was initially questioning the closure of upper GK but that notion immediately faded into oblivion after skiing upper Pike. In its current state it uhhh was not a re-run. The trails untouched by groomers were incredibly firm and, in some spots, quite icy. Sunset 71 was as rough as I can ever remember. A nicely groomed upper KA was the ROTD for the morning shift and the overall saving grace. Forty Niner quite nice too I must say, though quite crowded at some points. After an I Pie lunch stop headed over to K for the afternoon. Parked at Skyeship to see the state of it firsthand. Consistent with most reports throughout the season thus far, it really seems to be showing its age this year. Numerous broken cabins passed by before we got on as well as on the way up. Sad to see because for a slew of reasons but I will certainly miss the individuality of each of the cabins’ art when they are eventually replaced. Skied a soon to be closed Pipe Dream and found it to be softer than the natural snow offerings of Pico but certainly patchy and thin towards the bottom. Unfortunate that SR wasn’t running but not very surprising considering it’s a Wednesday. I was far more surprised (and kinda ticked) that the Bear quad wasn’t spinning—that didn’t make much sense to me. Bottleneck for the SPE which offered the longest line of the day (still not terrible for this week). Having been groomed, I thought Panic button might be worth a shot but found an ice waterfall where the trail was supposed to be. Middle and lower needles made up for it fortunately. Overall, Superstar was ROTD, right side was especially good. They’ve got some serious snow piling up on the middle portion this year—seems like more than in past years.

nice report. will be skiing pico tomorrow and hoping for some warming/softening. problem there, unlike at K, is all the trails are north facing and in most cases narrow, so they don't get a lot of direct sun.

hopefully w the new superstar chair delayed, the skyeship gets "some" refurbishment this summer but not holding my breath.

agree. felt the bear chair should be running this week. hit a full corral on the SPQ at one point. in truth the wait wasn't more than couple minutes. and tomorrow the SRQ is running. with skiing limited in the SR, i'd happily trade the bear chair for the SRQ.

[rogman]

Combination of weather and conditions made it one of the best ski days of the year. Basin side lots full, except for the rear of upper snow shed, Bear half full. Out the corral at SPE for a few hours; annoying since the Bear Quad was idle. Also makes it hard to assess OL before skiing. SS continued to excel, even as the guns were shut down. Race course was skied off by the time I got to it, ugh. No pretensions whatsoever as a racer. It’s just something to break up the week. Or is it break up the weak? IDK. Lower Royal Flush is slowly getting cooked, but hadn’t really softened up when I got to it. South Ridge had similar issues. Escapade to Cascade was a groomer as was lower Wildfire. Feels weird. Needles was slick. Called it around 1 for reasons.

[Captain Hafski]

Stratton Report. 1130 - 3:30 shift: A nice change of pace if nothing else. Overall, the icy base situation is similar to that at K with the ungroomed snowmaking trails being the firmest followed by the ungroomed nats. As expected, their woods trails [pretty much all open] have less cover than at K [they've gotten less snow, as is usually the case] and were a bit less icy due to overall lower traffic. Most all of the blue/black groomers were in very good shape. I was expecting / hopng for more of a warmup, to soften up the sun baked trails, but didn't get that. Butt, hard to complain about mostly full sun and upper 20's !

ROTD: Snow Bowl Express liftline. Smallish, nicely rounded bumps without any frozen in ski trackes. Icy troughs butt that was mostly avoidable.

Snoloco's Kidderbrook was nothing special; just a snowmaking trail that had been recently groomed and quite icy. I took it to eye up the adjacent woods trail [Test Pilot] but it looked to have a lot of frozen in ski tracks on it.

For other woods trails, Cabin Fever and Eclipse were the best I found. Both low angle options.

Fun day. Decent Happy Hour in Grizzlys though way too many kids running around for a bar !