ChrisC wrote:The Palmer Lift is about 1500 vert (7000 to 8500 according trail map).
I would estimate the midstation is at about 7500 - 7600 giving the snowfield almost 1000.
I checked back at the data from my watch.
Here is what I found:
Palmer top-half: 713 vertical ft (snowfield and steeper part)
Palmer bottom-half: 726 vft (snowfield tongue(?) in gully - flatter)
Ski run pass Palmer during the last week of the season: 792vft
Hike from end of snow to bottom of Magic Mile: 162vft
ChrisC wrote:The snowfield is definitely the steepest and most interesting part of the mountain. Maybe similar in pitch to the Chair 3/FaceLift (?) at Mammoth. Possibly less so. It's not a steep place. More like high intermediate than low expert pitch in my opinion.
I totally agree with Chris,I even think that Chair 3 is probably slightly steeper at it's steepest place than Palmer. Pitch grade from Palmer snowfield is very constant. As I mentioned in one of my report, Morgane was laughing when I told her that was a black run...she answered back that it's should be a green one. Mind you, she's was only 8 and has a hard time noticing how steep runs are.
Tony Crocker wrote:Second to last pic is bottom of Palmer, right? With Magic Mile chair overhead and its unloading station just out of the picture to the upper right?
My impression is that quite a bit more variety was there during Frank's trip a month earlier.
No, picture #3 is the Palmer midstation. The picture that you posted is the bottom of the Palmer lift.
Rock island look bigger than they were (the one with midstation). It's was the worst area on the snowfield, it's was really the last few turns on skier's right that add rock islanmd issue. 95% of the rest of the snowfield was more or less intact.
Tony Crocker wrote:My impression is that quite a bit more variety was there during Frank's trip a month earlier.
It was my understanding that not much of the coverage changed in one month, however I'm sure that the rocks were probably not popping out at the bottom of the snowfield (mid). That only really started in the last week of August. Frank could probably answer this more than I can, but it was my understanding that he had a skier right option on the left side of the lift. The bottom of the run was skiable and wide open, however it was sheltered from view and I couldn't see where it started. There might have been only a small walk required at the top to make to the snow and ski all the way down to the bottom of the Palmer lift.