EMSC
Well-known member
Day 26: Salvageable dust on crust
The latest storm delivered pretty much everywhere but Eldora where only 3" fell overnight with continuing snow showers early this am. Despite my hopes, nothing really accumulating fell after the snow report. The best news given the relatively thin new snow was that the place was practically deserted on the backside. As I anticipated there was probably double the 3" in the upper backside which greatly helped, as well as about that much in wind loaded spots too. It took me a couple of runs to figure out the places to go, but once I did it turned into a very salvageable day where I racked up only 17.2K of vert before calling it around 2:30 as I had mostly chewed through the best stuff combined with the tiredness of a now 8 day long cold that just won't go away.
I basically exclusively skied the backside with one or two of my initial experiments being a bit too crusty underneath but then figuring out the secret of the recent sun softening. The #1 key was to NOT ski the final 200 verts of West Ridge - or you might lose a filling from your teeth. The steeper the terrain the less firm the crust and then adding in the correct side near the trees or in the deep woods had still soft winter snow underneath. I know just enough of these lines in Salto, West Ridge and my secret staches to keep me busy from 9:45 til 2:30. I also poked around the first several runs as I figured it all out, as well as stopped for a 15 minute lunch for an overall slower day for me.
Another 2-4" forecast tonight and it was clouding up as I left. Unless it hits the 4" number or more it'll be the same as today though. OK if you work for it, but otherwise a bit tough conditions for the other 99%.
The latest storm delivered pretty much everywhere but Eldora where only 3" fell overnight with continuing snow showers early this am. Despite my hopes, nothing really accumulating fell after the snow report. The best news given the relatively thin new snow was that the place was practically deserted on the backside. As I anticipated there was probably double the 3" in the upper backside which greatly helped, as well as about that much in wind loaded spots too. It took me a couple of runs to figure out the places to go, but once I did it turned into a very salvageable day where I racked up only 17.2K of vert before calling it around 2:30 as I had mostly chewed through the best stuff combined with the tiredness of a now 8 day long cold that just won't go away.
I basically exclusively skied the backside with one or two of my initial experiments being a bit too crusty underneath but then figuring out the secret of the recent sun softening. The #1 key was to NOT ski the final 200 verts of West Ridge - or you might lose a filling from your teeth. The steeper the terrain the less firm the crust and then adding in the correct side near the trees or in the deep woods had still soft winter snow underneath. I know just enough of these lines in Salto, West Ridge and my secret staches to keep me busy from 9:45 til 2:30. I also poked around the first several runs as I figured it all out, as well as stopped for a 15 minute lunch for an overall slower day for me.
Another 2-4" forecast tonight and it was clouding up as I left. Unless it hits the 4" number or more it'll be the same as today though. OK if you work for it, but otherwise a bit tough conditions for the other 99%.