Eldora, CO 11-11-18

EMSC

Well-known member
Day 1: Mid winter, but oh the Ikon crowds

Cold and snowy with periods where you literally could not see more than 5-10 feet in front of your face. But with only Eldora open in all of the west as to Ikon pass, half of the front range skiers were there trying to get up the 6 pack. Good thing Eldora was able to open a 3rd top to bottom trail in time for the weekend too to absorb the skier traffic (and some beginner terrain opened as well).

Official report was 9" of new snow, though it seemed like a bit more than that depth wise. I would have guessed at least 10" before I left at 2p when it was still snowing heavily. Unfortunately it was blower pow on a firm man-made base so skied a bit like dust on crust-ish. You definitely were hitting bottom. Probably could have had 2 feet and would still hit bottom is was so light and fluffy.

Anyway my son had been begging me to go skiing for probably the past month. He is definitely more into early season skiing than I am, lol. This ticked that box decently enough despite the crowds. Loved seeing the mid-winter vibe of the day too.

Snowmaking was ongoing in the beginner areas and also on Around the Horn. According to a patroller who we rode the lift with, Eldora is skipping past Indian Peaks lift for now and trying to go all the way to Corona lift first. That would be a significant change to opening pattern for them.

Lastly a kudos to the Eldora team. They blew snow earlier than ever; The race hill (Labelle) and training hill (chute/poma) are both already open; They saw an opportunity to be the first Ikon pass resort to open and took it, making some decent $$ during a normally slow period of the year; And they 'overstaffed' things like the main lift (there were at least 10 lifties trying to keep things organized and moving and it was needed and mostly worked despite a bit a chaos in the maze).

Now we dry out for a few days and Winter Park and Copper should both open later this week changing the dynamics a bit (though if those places only open a trail or two why drive the extra distance).

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Nice report ! Good to see Colorado early snow this year , it's anyone's guess for the other regions.
 
ChrisC":vqg0tbxy said:
How long was that lift line?

Long, really long.

Worst run was ~35 min from getting in line to getting back into the line (eg lap time). For the most part we were closer to ~25 minutes per lap. Lift time is under 4 minutes, plus the couple minutes skiing down 1,000 verts... Thank goodness they upgraded to a 6 pack instead of a quad; at least for this instance. And with 3 top to bottom runs it was the equivalent of a double chair worth of people per run. Quite crowded, but not too insane on the way down (compared to say ABasin or Loveland on opening weeks with Quads and one trail).
 
lono":1pnno24m said:
Nice report ! Good to see Colorado early snow this year, it's anyone's guess for the other regions.
Discovery was 21% open last weekend on an 18-24 inch base and 48 inches season snowfall. That sounds quite comparable to the open areas in Colorado to me. The inland Northwest locations are not doing as well. There is no info from Bridger or Big Sky yet, but I suspect they have more snow on the ground than average.

On Sunday Nov. 11 this is the scattered info I had so far: bestsnow.net/seas19.htm Vail opened early today with 600 acres. So the early November storm extended a bit farther west than I thought.
 
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Skid Beehive Basin, a couple of miles north of Big Sky Resort on Monday, ~3 ft. base, didn't hit anything.
 
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