Abasin closing weekend

Do you get melancholy on your last ski day or do you quickly shift gears and start looking forward to non-ski activities?
 
Do you get melancholy on your last ski day or do you quickly shift gears and start looking forward to non-ski activities?
Can't speak for others, but the season is long enough out here for me that I quickly and easily switch gears about mid-May now-a-days. I used to ski well into June coaching race camps for a while though. I have too many summer hobbies now...
 
Do you get melancholy on your last ski day or do you quickly shift gears and start looking forward to non-ski activities?
Next season has already started!
 

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Can't speak for others, but the season is long enough out here for me that I quickly and easily switch gears about mid-May now-a-days. I used to ski well into June coaching race camps for a while though. I have too many summer hobbies now...
Yeah, I pretty much agree. Sometimes if I know it's my last ski day and I'm alone on the hill I may get a bit melancholy for a run or two. There's only so many ski seasons we get and I've used up most of mine ;)
But I enjoy many other activities. In my retirement years I get longer ski seasons and by May I'm pretty much ready to switch to other stuff.
 
It's not an either/or proposition. Last season when I skied 6 days between June 30 and August 5, it's not that I was doing nothing the rest of the time. If the lifts are open and the open terrain meets my standards I'll continue to ski periodically. As ChrisC noted, the "failure to meet my standards" scenario is much more likely in the early season than the late season.
 
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So there's a point toward the end of spring that terrain doesn't meet standards due to wet slides keeping steeps closed?
 
So there's a point toward the end of spring that terrain doesn't meet standards due to wet slides keeping steeps closed?
Not at Mammoth with its stable coastal snowpack! A-Basin becomes not worth destination travel IMHO when its steeps close for instability average May 10-15. For a local within daytrip distance the 2-4 runs on Lenawee are worthwhile to the end if it's not busy.

The other issue is that the closing date/weekend can be excessively crowded if open lifts are limited. This is a big issue when Snowbird or A-Basin makes it to July and I would never do those based on lift line pics I've seen. Mammoth when open in July usually has chairs 1, 3, 23 and the gondola to handle traffic adequately. Mammoth's August 5-6 closing weekend last year with only 3 and 23 plus G1 for access was not up to the crowds that were there. I suspected as much and got off the hill before 9AM Saturday. Friday August 4 was not a problem.
 
Why does it resist melting?
It doesn't exactly resist melting per say. The two snowpacks are very different in structure.

Coastal snowpack falls usually very dense and when it melts the snow under the surface layers is already water saturated basically. In Colorado/continental snowpacks, despite the many skiers compacting things, is much drier and looser snow that is easily undermined by the snowmelt happening on the surface and trickling through. It creates big undermined areas and will even wash away the bottom part of the snowpack in areas leading to sudden, very unpredictable slides. The already wet snowpack on the bottom of the costal snowpack doesn't wash away like that and stays stuck to the ground which is much more stable.

ABasin actually installs a couple of sensors on steep slopes to detect running water under the steepest runs. When they detect running water the steeps are done for the year so the undermined snowpack doesn't slide on guests (about 20 years ago they had an inbounds wet avalanche that killed one person in spring).
 
It doesn't exactly resist melting per say. The two snowpacks are very different in structure.

Coastal snowpack falls usually very dense and when it melts the snow under the surface layers is already water saturated basically. In Colorado/continental snowpacks, despite the many skiers compacting things, is much drier and looser snow that is easily undermined by the snowmelt happening on the surface and trickling through. It creates big undermined areas and will even wash away the bottom part of the snowpack in areas leading to sudden, very unpredictable slides. The already wet snowpack on the bottom of the costal snowpack doesn't wash away like that and stays stuck to the ground which is much more stable.

ABasin actually installs a couple of sensors on steep slopes to detect running water under the steepest runs. When they detect running water the steeps are done for the year so the undermined snowpack doesn't slide on guests (about 20 years ago they had an inbounds wet avalanche that killed one person in spring).
Thanks. Makes sense now I understand about the water under the snowpack.
 
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