Eldora, CO 3-3-13

EMSC

Well-known member
Almost spring.

At least nearly everything is open at Eldora at this point. It's a bit thin in spots (probably 4-6 weeks behind what is normal for this time of year). A warm day with a fiar bit of sun but also fortunately with the wind blowing pretty strong too keeping the temps at least reasonable. Even so, certain spots and a couple of the east facing trails started to soften quite a bit and will need decent snows once they freeze up. I was on the lift by ~9:30am and found that Saturday's warm weather had not turned the snow even in the flat base area which was a good sign. Thursday night and Friday had brought 6" of new and Eldora has had somewhere around 60" total since my last report at the end of January.

I headed straight to the steep stuff thaty I haven't been able to ski the whole season. Spots of tricky to navigate, but mostly very skiable. I hit upper Ambush first heading to the Corona chair which I lapped most of the day. West Ridge was decent though still a bit thin, Salto was very fun and very soft. Even an inch of wind sift on the upper part to make it creamy on top of soft. After about 5 runs on the backside, I took an early break for lunch at the Lookout. Then headed back out after only 20 minutes. A few more laps on Salto and Moose glades and I decided to see if a secret spot was skiable yet.

The upper portion was very wind slabbed and I was about to head back out of there but decided to at least take a look at the lower slot and was glad I did as the lower portion was 6" of untouched on a just deep enough base. It clearly had been skied this season by others, but had not been touched recently which was odd. For that matter Moose glade had not been fully skied out either. It's a bit too much work really, but given how little powder I've had at Eldora in recent seasons, it did just fine. A couple more laps there and my legs were starting to feel it. So I began to head back toward the front side hitting IP liftline on the way and one front side run to finish things off. I counted a touch over 20K of vert by the time I stopped ~2:45pm.

Only at the base, when I took my skis off did I realize that I had done any damage... It was on West Ridge that I hit a small rock with my tip and the rock went flying seemingly not even hitting my ski bottoms... See the damage below. Didn't hit the part I ski on, but that's going to de-laminate the whole edge I fear... Good thing they are 6+ years old, even though they are my favorite tree/chute skis. :-(

Certainly by far my best Eldora day of the season so far. Hopefully we can continue to get snow (supposed to get at least some in the next week+).

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TRam":3809rh4l said:
Ouch! Is that repairable?
How where the crowds?

Not sure that it will be repairable. I still need to take it in to the shop; I'm hoping they can bend the metal back or cut it and do some type of base weld that will hold for a while at least... Since it's not on the true skiing part of the base It should have a better shot at a fix than any other type of edge damage.

Busy but not crowded would be my way of phrasing it. Perhaps up to a 5 minute lift line at times, but mostly 1-2 minute waits at the lifts. The steep stuff was never all that busy though. Easy to find your own spots and only see a handful of others on a run.
 
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