Mt Waterman 2-27-11 Powder and Pictures

We hit up Mt Waterman on Sunday Feb. 27 and it was quite an adventure with lots of ice on the road, lots of people, but best of all lots of deep light powder. We left early to be sure to get up there as soon as possible to get what promised to be some great powder skiing. The word on the street was that the road and the gates would be open in the A.M. ( but with Waterman you never know, and we were crossing our fingers) Almost as soon as we entered Tujunga Canyon the road turned into a skating rink, not much above the 2000' level. I kicked the 4wheel in on my 2500 and had no problems but i knew it was going to cause problems for others.


as we approached the Hwy 2 we see a line of 25 cars stopped ... the gate is closed! ](*,)

however, we didn't wait long as someone came along and open the gate and we rolled onto Hwy2 and up to Waterman



@ 6000 things were looking real good with over 2' on the roadsides:





rolling into the parking lot ... the place never looked better: BlueBird Powder Day!!





The ticket line was a mosh pit...evidently word has gotten out about this place. Must be that internet thing people are talking about. The liftline at chair one was long as well but it as well worth it:











After the first run we were greeted by the sight of an insane ticket line down to the road and a huge liftline to chair one. ( It was the longest I have seen in my 20 years of skiing Waterman, but it did mellow out once they got the top open. In addition, we heard there was an accident on the road and they closed the gates, who knows how many people got shut out..)





Got up to Chair 2 when it opened:













And of course we got in some of the famous 'over there'









interesting to note the charred tree and realized how close Waterman came to being gobbled up by the Station Fire... we are fortunate to have this place





the resort got preety well beat by the end of the day . And as is common in socal the powder got a bit thicker and had some crust by about 2 pm but not too bad , the shaded ares stayed nice all day. It was a fantastic day up at Mt Waterman.

San Gabriels fron the West San Fernando Valley 2-28-11:

Nicely done! =D> SoCal skiing is clearly about getting it when the getting's good, and you obviously did.

Phenomenal! Great pics. So jealous, I had friends in town and couldn't head up.

Great to see Waterman get so much business, they deserve it with the challenges they've faced with the roads the last 2 years.

Any signs of instability "over there?" Curious after seeing the pics of the slabs patrol let loose on Bentley's at Baldy, though loading conditions would differ substantially.

Did they get chair 3 open?

I did a progress report Sunday and the website said the road was closed. At any rate it was a great call for those who knew.

Gorgeous.

excellent pics! =D>

great pics of a really cool looking place

The roads don't look that bad.I could drive a Corvette with bald tires on roads that look like that...

jasoncapecod":2vaq01ym said:

great pics of a really cool looking place

The roads don't look that bad.I could drive a Corvette with bald tires on roads that look like that...

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Yup. The scale here for what people consider "bad roads" is a lot different from what I'm used to back East. Went up to June Mtn this weekend and was desperate to leave early given all the dire predictions on road conditions with such low snow levels. Though I hit snow at exactly 5000' on the Sherwin Grade, and I had a 3 year old with me who required an extra pit stop, I made it to our condo in June in 5 hours flat.

Maybe Hwy 2 and the other main roads in the San Gabriels are different due to the fact that they are much curvier and with steeper grades as opposed to 395, but I haven't seen anything that was particularly daunting in SoCal yet.

Mike,

Haven't you complained about Mt. Baldy Road?

I dunno, that first pic — the road looks pretty iced over. Maybe because we don't all have snow tires or studded tires, whatever here? I don't know what's required in other parts of the country. Also, the vast majority of SoCal residents can go their whole lives without ever having to drive in such conditions (missing out on lots of good practice should they choose to visit mountains).

One of the best waterman TRs that I have ever seen. Some of my best ski days ever were at Waterman. Especially when they were open 7 days a week and I worked night crew in Sylmar. Hitting it mid week during a storm was great. I was up there the day the Sepulvida Basin got flooded and they were air lifting people from their cars. Our tracks were refilled every run and we would high five each other as we skied down the road for another lap.

BT

I don't see you here often, Tim, but it's good to see you when you're here.

Well, I was just reading the Mt Waterman Facebook. Apparently, the gate @ Hwy 2 was cut open [-X .... =D> ... i had pulled up about 25 cars deep, stopped, got out for a few minutes and then we saw people running for their vehicles and we were off. In hindsight i guess it was strange that there was no official vehicles at the intersection, in fact we didn't see any CHP , chain control or anything the whole time on the road up there. In addition, it seems that there are two entities responsible for clearing and controlling the roads....CalTrans up on Hwy2 and PublicWorks down on Upper Tujunga. Once we were on the 2 it was nicely plowed and graveled as opposed to down below, which had long stretches of black ice and no graveling. So, not long after we passed thru, angry PW officials closed the gate.... many people were not able to pass that gate and had to turn around. Ouch. Well the Mt Waterman saga continues.... I hope this doesn't cause future problems as there are already too many to deal with.

SoCal Rider":3b3etza2 said:

Mike,

Haven't you complained about Mt. Baldy Road?

I dunno, that first pic — the road looks pretty iced over. Maybe because we don't all have snow tires or studded tires, whatever here? I don't know what's required in other parts of the country. Also, the vast majority of SoCal residents can go their whole lives without ever having to drive in such conditions (missing out on lots of good practice should they choose to visit mountains).

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Mt Baldy road can definitely be sketchy when you get those storms with the snow levels falling after a frontal passage. That said, I would argue that it's as much, if not more, from the other drivers as it is the conditions themselves. The switchbacks aren't too bad when there's no one in front of you - I make great time even with an icy road so long as I get up there early enough. When you are at a standstill b/c some guy in a Miata with summer tires is stuck ahead of you, that's when it gets dicey.

Lack of practice is definitely a factor, as you point out. Not having snow tires likely also contributes - they are par for the course in the Northeast for anyone living north of, say, Philly.

I agree with you, the switchbacks are doable if people are moving, giving each other room etc. The first time I drove to the ski area with improved cables (with tensioners) following a storm in little traffic, I was stoked to zoom up that last stretch. With cheaper cables, it once took me three tries to make it past there in my Civic.

But I'll cut Cali drivers some slack when it comes to that one. It can be one hell of a road, and I think it has to rank up there with other mountain roads across the country. But I don't have a lot of experience in that department, so maybe I'm overrating it some. (When you go from driving to Mountain High in snowy conditions to Baldy, perhaps that's easy to do.)

My opinion is that the hairpin section at Baldy is one of the more difficult snow driving roads in the U.S. The saving grace is that it's short, only 2 miles or so. So it doesn't cost much time if you're not held up by traffic, drivers who shouldn't be there, etc.

I've driven a rental car (with no winter tires) up Shames snowcovered access road on a storm day. Barely large enough to meet traffic.

I agree, it's mostly about experiences. Not sure if Tony would agree, but one of the craziest access road in the one for El Arpa (Chile) followed by Valle Nevado. Alpe d'Huez isn't bad either, potential barf bag needed when you have someone that has motion sickness.

That road would seem pretty tame.

I did qualify my road comment about Baldy as "in the U.S." Arpa, Valle Nevado and whole bunch of unpaved access roads in New Zealand are in a completely different league.

Mike Bernstein":2tqawkbs said:

SoCal Rider":2tqawkbs said:

Mike,

Haven't you complained about Mt. Baldy Road?

I dunno, that first pic — the road looks pretty iced over. Maybe because we don't all have snow tires or studded tires, whatever here? I don't know what's required in other parts of the country. Also, the vast majority of SoCal residents can go their whole lives without ever having to drive in such conditions (missing out on lots of good practice should they choose to visit mountains).

Click to expand...

Mt Baldy road can definitely be sketchy when you get those storms with the snow levels falling after a frontal passage. That said, I would argue that it's as much, if not more, from the other drivers as it is the conditions themselves. The switchbacks aren't too bad when there's no one in front of you - I make great time even with an icy road so long as I get up there early enough. When you are at a standstill b/c some guy in a Miata with summer tires is stuck ahead of you, that's when it gets dicey.

Lack of practice is definitely a factor, as you point out. Not having snow tires likely also contributes - they are par for the course in the Northeast for anyone living north of, say, Philly.

Click to expand...

I was raised in Northern New York State, in an area that got lake effect storms off from Lake Ontario. To me one difference between driving back there and driving up Mt. Baldy road after a storm is that most snowplows back home used to spread sand at the same time as they plowed the road. On Mt. Baldy road it seems that they plow down to the ice covered road while it's storming and after awhile get around to spreading sand/gravel/ash or whatever they use on the ice. Even 4 wheel drive vehicles don't do well on bare ice, unless they have chains (or are able to maintain forward momentum at all times, which is a lot to ask on that road).

Since locals don't seem to be posting these days about the better SoCal areas :-k, here are early February TRs from rodo_af, a tireless French monoskier who travels the world every season and is also a major lift junkie (has his own exhaustive website). While off-piste doesn't look very promising, there seems to be decent on-piste overage.

Waterman:
http://www.zoneski.com/forum/topic/2146 ... rier-2016/

Baldy:
http://www.zoneski.com/forum/topic/2145 ... rier-2016/

He posted an impressive set of pictures. I don't think I saw a single skier in any of his Baldy pics. I guess Robin's and Skyline softened up after my scary ice experience on Feb. 1 viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12036 .

I was also not aware that Waterman reopened after it closed after MLK. It was open the first 2 weekends in January, and after this TR I'm guessing first 2 weekends in February. Baldy closed after President's weekend. The February 18 rain washed out the beginner area, so they were considering trucking people down to Thunder, but decided against it. Presumably Robin's and Skyline would have iced up again.

Mt. High closed today. They are spinning that they will open "after the storm of March 10-11," but of course that prediction is way too far off to have any credibility.

I will definitely not be missing any powder my first week in Indonesia (I leave this afternoon). The week after that is Iron Blosam....will my Utah track record still hold in absentia? :lol: