Unsettled weather was predicted May 4-8, mostly cloudy with an inch or two of snow here and there. Wednesday was the least promising because the first weather was predicted to be rain. We got lucky and the rain did not get going until dinner time.
With the cloudy weather Garry, Liz and I took our time and got on the mountain just before 10AM. The chair 2 runs Stump Alley, Mambo and Patrolmen’s were in their corn prime, so we skied all 3 of those first. By 10:30 this groomer was making a second pass with salt to keep the snow from getting too sticky.
More ski areas need to do this if they want to attract intermediates in May.
Most of the mountain softened around 11AM, so Cornice was good enough to ski twice. We then tried Climax, which was OK but a bit less smooth. Next time up the gondola we hit Dave’s.
From there we skied in chair 5 terrain, first through Triangle. Garry there:
Liz in Dry Creek lower down.
At the very bottom of 5 the snow was getting a bit heavy by noon but it’s very quiet over here midweek.
Since the snow was now sun softened top to bottom I next went over to Paranoid 3 and traversed to inspect Philippe’s. I usually decline to ski this, but spring snow can be more forgiving in steep chutes, so I gave it a shot.
There were two sets of rocks below me, so I sideslipped past the first ones and turned around the lower rocks.
Lower down looking up to Paranoid 3 at left. Philippe’s is hidden behind the first set of rocks dropping upper left to lower right.
We got out of the next gondola and I thought the backside might be good.
It was here but it was real slog to intersect Roadrunner to return to the front side. In May sun it’s generally best to go back there around 11AM.
Our next run was a return to the Paranoids, which had excellent spring snow. I skied P2 while Garry pushed farther over to P3.
Lower down we both skied P2
With the top still in great shape we took 2 more runs up there, first skier’s right of Scotty’s on the Hump and finally traversing left from Cornice to the bowl under Drop Out 3. Like last week chair 23 was closed midweek. We moved to chair 1, skied Fascination and Baby Gravy, then took 3 up to finish the day on Coyote. I skied 24,800 vertical.
With the short rain the prior evening there was some question in mind whether there was an overnight freeze, so we started Thursday about 9:30. The early morning was sunny so the chair 2 runs were again in prime corn mode when Garry, Liz and I got there. However high temps were about 30F vs. 40F the prior day so the softening process was slower on the upper mountain. Cornice was decent but the upper half of Climax was still quite frozen after 11AM, and since the weather gradually worsened nothing remaining frozen softened further later in the day.
Twice we loaded the gondola at the base but were forced to get out midway because of thick fog on top. The first time was only for about 10 minutes, so after a Broadway cruise we went back to the top and skied the backside. As snow was still frozen on top we skied into Roadrunner and dropped into Red Hill which had smooth corn. Lower down the snow was supportable so it was easy to get back onto Roadrunner.
The clouds were building again over the Minarets, this time accompanied by thunder
We heard thunder 3 times while on the backside and twice more as we approached Main Lodge, so to no surprise the lifts were shut down and we took lunch at 12:30.
After lunch we took a warmup on Andy’s Double Gold, then took a last run up top to the Red Hill/backside corn. By the time we got back to Main the weather deteriorated for good, closing the top in fog. We went up 3 to test the chair 5 terrain, but mid-level snow was refreezing, so we called it a day at 2PM with 17,400 vertical.
With the cloudy weather Garry, Liz and I took our time and got on the mountain just before 10AM. The chair 2 runs Stump Alley, Mambo and Patrolmen’s were in their corn prime, so we skied all 3 of those first. By 10:30 this groomer was making a second pass with salt to keep the snow from getting too sticky.
More ski areas need to do this if they want to attract intermediates in May.
Most of the mountain softened around 11AM, so Cornice was good enough to ski twice. We then tried Climax, which was OK but a bit less smooth. Next time up the gondola we hit Dave’s.
From there we skied in chair 5 terrain, first through Triangle. Garry there:
Liz in Dry Creek lower down.
At the very bottom of 5 the snow was getting a bit heavy by noon but it’s very quiet over here midweek.
Since the snow was now sun softened top to bottom I next went over to Paranoid 3 and traversed to inspect Philippe’s. I usually decline to ski this, but spring snow can be more forgiving in steep chutes, so I gave it a shot.
There were two sets of rocks below me, so I sideslipped past the first ones and turned around the lower rocks.
Lower down looking up to Paranoid 3 at left. Philippe’s is hidden behind the first set of rocks dropping upper left to lower right.
We got out of the next gondola and I thought the backside might be good.
It was here but it was real slog to intersect Roadrunner to return to the front side. In May sun it’s generally best to go back there around 11AM.
Our next run was a return to the Paranoids, which had excellent spring snow. I skied P2 while Garry pushed farther over to P3.
Lower down we both skied P2
With the top still in great shape we took 2 more runs up there, first skier’s right of Scotty’s on the Hump and finally traversing left from Cornice to the bowl under Drop Out 3. Like last week chair 23 was closed midweek. We moved to chair 1, skied Fascination and Baby Gravy, then took 3 up to finish the day on Coyote. I skied 24,800 vertical.
With the short rain the prior evening there was some question in mind whether there was an overnight freeze, so we started Thursday about 9:30. The early morning was sunny so the chair 2 runs were again in prime corn mode when Garry, Liz and I got there. However high temps were about 30F vs. 40F the prior day so the softening process was slower on the upper mountain. Cornice was decent but the upper half of Climax was still quite frozen after 11AM, and since the weather gradually worsened nothing remaining frozen softened further later in the day.
Twice we loaded the gondola at the base but were forced to get out midway because of thick fog on top. The first time was only for about 10 minutes, so after a Broadway cruise we went back to the top and skied the backside. As snow was still frozen on top we skied into Roadrunner and dropped into Red Hill which had smooth corn. Lower down the snow was supportable so it was easy to get back onto Roadrunner.
The clouds were building again over the Minarets, this time accompanied by thunder
We heard thunder 3 times while on the backside and twice more as we approached Main Lodge, so to no surprise the lifts were shut down and we took lunch at 12:30.
After lunch we took a warmup on Andy’s Double Gold, then took a last run up top to the Red Hill/backside corn. By the time we got back to Main the weather deteriorated for good, closing the top in fog. We went up 3 to test the chair 5 terrain, but mid-level snow was refreezing, so we called it a day at 2PM with 17,400 vertical.
