jkamien
Member
After carefully watching the forecasted snow, I arrived at the Mt. Baldy parking lot shortly before 8AM. The road was cleared down to the pavement, and sanded, but the SoCal scaredy-drivers were still putting on chains. What's up with that?
The Baldy website reported 4-6 inches. They had been dropping hints about Chair 4 opening for the first time this season, and I was hoping to use it today to access some nice parking lot runs. The 6:14AM posting on Baldy's website said, "All lifts are operating, as weather conditions permit". No such luck - Chair 4's chairs are not even hung on the cable...talk about deceptive advertising!
I boarded the parking lot chair at 8:15. Everything looked fresh and I saw nobody skiing the parking lot runs. After a ride that seemed like an eternity, I finally got on Chair 3 to Thunder at about 8:35 and stood at the top of Thunder at 8:50. Wow, that was a long trip.
My first inclination was to see what South Bowl had to offer. Only the lower entrance was open, but no one had been in there and it was not touched. The surface was indeed the 4-6 inches advertised, although a little heavy, and this was over a crust and many hidden rocks. Baldy sure isn't shy about opening terrain. I was expecting last year's superb coverage, but we haven't had nearly enough snow for that. Their attitude seems to be, if you want to tear up your skis, be my guest.
Nonetheless, the turns were sweet, if challenging. Every once and a while, I felt myself hitting debris just under the surface. I pulled another South Bowl immediately after that. I also discovered that the high traverse out of the South Bowl was not an option like last year. Any face that had seen the sun was littered with chocolate chips and was simply not negotiable without stepping through rock fields.
I then took the trees to the skier's right of Chair 3. This was my old standby from last year and it had some nice snow on it. Back to South Bowl, and this time they had opened an upper gate giving access to terrain further out to the skier's left. How nice to be skiing first tracks in Southern California! It was still tricky, though, with lots of barely covered obstacles.
Later on in the day, I hooked up with Jim Wood who suggested Gold Rush trees (I think that's the name). You go left down the intermediate trail off the lift, then cut left into the trees when the trail turns right. This area had the best snow of the day and I wound up spending a lot more time there.
Sometime, Jim and I did a run down to the parking lot....very tricky stuff with a crust underneath and more submerged obstacles and chocolate chip rock fields.
All in all, it was a challenging day that wore me out by about 2:30. 15 runs, including two to the parking lot.
My Stokli Stormriders took a beating today, with five, count 'em, five core shots. OUCH! I'll need to get them fixed Thursday night in Alta. Do the Alta ski shops know how to deal with severe damage? At least I didn't pull an edge out, although one spot is dangerously close to an edge.
The Baldy website reported 4-6 inches. They had been dropping hints about Chair 4 opening for the first time this season, and I was hoping to use it today to access some nice parking lot runs. The 6:14AM posting on Baldy's website said, "All lifts are operating, as weather conditions permit". No such luck - Chair 4's chairs are not even hung on the cable...talk about deceptive advertising!
I boarded the parking lot chair at 8:15. Everything looked fresh and I saw nobody skiing the parking lot runs. After a ride that seemed like an eternity, I finally got on Chair 3 to Thunder at about 8:35 and stood at the top of Thunder at 8:50. Wow, that was a long trip.
My first inclination was to see what South Bowl had to offer. Only the lower entrance was open, but no one had been in there and it was not touched. The surface was indeed the 4-6 inches advertised, although a little heavy, and this was over a crust and many hidden rocks. Baldy sure isn't shy about opening terrain. I was expecting last year's superb coverage, but we haven't had nearly enough snow for that. Their attitude seems to be, if you want to tear up your skis, be my guest.
Nonetheless, the turns were sweet, if challenging. Every once and a while, I felt myself hitting debris just under the surface. I pulled another South Bowl immediately after that. I also discovered that the high traverse out of the South Bowl was not an option like last year. Any face that had seen the sun was littered with chocolate chips and was simply not negotiable without stepping through rock fields.
I then took the trees to the skier's right of Chair 3. This was my old standby from last year and it had some nice snow on it. Back to South Bowl, and this time they had opened an upper gate giving access to terrain further out to the skier's left. How nice to be skiing first tracks in Southern California! It was still tricky, though, with lots of barely covered obstacles.
Later on in the day, I hooked up with Jim Wood who suggested Gold Rush trees (I think that's the name). You go left down the intermediate trail off the lift, then cut left into the trees when the trail turns right. This area had the best snow of the day and I wound up spending a lot more time there.
Sometime, Jim and I did a run down to the parking lot....very tricky stuff with a crust underneath and more submerged obstacles and chocolate chip rock fields.
All in all, it was a challenging day that wore me out by about 2:30. 15 runs, including two to the parking lot.
My Stokli Stormriders took a beating today, with five, count 'em, five core shots. OUCH! I'll need to get them fixed Thursday night in Alta. Do the Alta ski shops know how to deal with severe damage? At least I didn't pull an edge out, although one spot is dangerously close to an edge.
