EMSC
Well-known member
Somewhere between winter and spring.
Just me again this week, as the wife has lost her interest for the season. Quite a difference from the powder day one week ago. For those areas that had gotten sun affected during the past week, the wait for softening to occur was long. Fortunately several areas are decent winter chalk snow still. Breezy at the bottom where the Beach was in full swing (including kids jumping via snowboard over a junker sofa propped vertically). And WINDY on top. Montezuma and Norway lifts were shut due to the wind and the cool breeze kept the refrozen areas quite solid all the way until mid afternoon. The shut lifts made for some lines this week (especially exhibition, but also Pali starting ~11am)
I had hoped the trees would have kept the sun off of a lot of Pali and tried 2nd alley first thing with poor results. Very, um.... crunchy. But that run did give me the exposure clues I needed to avoid most of the junk for the rest of the day. I hit West Alley which is turned just enough that it was chalky on skiers left side. I alternated that with a wonderfully chalky Pali main street for a number of laps (8 I think). Only the last 100 yards was refrozen chop on main street which was quite OK given the 1200' of chalk above that.
Then headed down a just softening east facing slalom slope to hit North Pole (around 12:30pm). Wind was howling out of the S/SW and literally nearly pushed you to the ground in a couple spots to make the hike more challenging. This time choosing a better entry point at "Narrow North Pole". Enough rock in one spot that I did 2 hop turns, but at least 95% of the vert was very skiable. There are ~4 or 5 chutes available from the "Narrow" entrance which I lapped 3 times. Good chalky snow in the North Pole area, but funky snow this week for the other chutes (like Willie's from last week). So I skipped the big hikes for those; the snow would have been skiable, but not of good enough quality to justify that level of hike.
Anyway, I finished off with laps on West Alley, Pali Main Street and then finishing off with a Main/West Turbo run just after 3pm. No lunch stop and no BBQ at the end, just 5 1/2 hrs of nonstop skiing. I guess Taos 3 weeks ago was my spring skiing this year.
As I will be out of town next weekend, unless some storms blow in to bring powder/winter back to the Basin, this might very well be my final day this season. A fun, good year.
Just me again this week, as the wife has lost her interest for the season. Quite a difference from the powder day one week ago. For those areas that had gotten sun affected during the past week, the wait for softening to occur was long. Fortunately several areas are decent winter chalk snow still. Breezy at the bottom where the Beach was in full swing (including kids jumping via snowboard over a junker sofa propped vertically). And WINDY on top. Montezuma and Norway lifts were shut due to the wind and the cool breeze kept the refrozen areas quite solid all the way until mid afternoon. The shut lifts made for some lines this week (especially exhibition, but also Pali starting ~11am)
I had hoped the trees would have kept the sun off of a lot of Pali and tried 2nd alley first thing with poor results. Very, um.... crunchy. But that run did give me the exposure clues I needed to avoid most of the junk for the rest of the day. I hit West Alley which is turned just enough that it was chalky on skiers left side. I alternated that with a wonderfully chalky Pali main street for a number of laps (8 I think). Only the last 100 yards was refrozen chop on main street which was quite OK given the 1200' of chalk above that.
Then headed down a just softening east facing slalom slope to hit North Pole (around 12:30pm). Wind was howling out of the S/SW and literally nearly pushed you to the ground in a couple spots to make the hike more challenging. This time choosing a better entry point at "Narrow North Pole". Enough rock in one spot that I did 2 hop turns, but at least 95% of the vert was very skiable. There are ~4 or 5 chutes available from the "Narrow" entrance which I lapped 3 times. Good chalky snow in the North Pole area, but funky snow this week for the other chutes (like Willie's from last week). So I skipped the big hikes for those; the snow would have been skiable, but not of good enough quality to justify that level of hike.
Anyway, I finished off with laps on West Alley, Pali Main Street and then finishing off with a Main/West Turbo run just after 3pm. No lunch stop and no BBQ at the end, just 5 1/2 hrs of nonstop skiing. I guess Taos 3 weeks ago was my spring skiing this year.
As I will be out of town next weekend, unless some storms blow in to bring powder/winter back to the Basin, this might very well be my final day this season. A fun, good year.
