riverc0il
New member
Well, the forecast for wrap around snow was a complete bust. It was snowing when we got there but nothing had stuck and nothing would stick. Wind was blasting something fierce. But things were shut down for the day with no hope of opening. Word was that parts of the lifts were frozen solid and they needed the wind to die down so maintenance could climb all the towers and knock free the ice. I knew it was all or nothing going in... either a complete bust or a no competition dust on crust powder day. Turns out it was a bust.
That's okay, that is why I have a touring rig.... which I conveniently left at home. Oops.
:roll: Screw post holing, hiking I go! Thankfully my partner had a pack I could borrow for ski carry but post holing turned out not to be a concern because there was no powder any where. None. Went into the woods and maybe an inch or two tops had collected in drift locations only shortly before noon time. The wind had even picked the woods clean in addition to the trails.
We made our way up to the last pitch Northway and made the decision to start heading back down because nothing looked worth the hike. Even the woods were blown clear to a wind blown barely breakable crust layer. I would like to say we did this for you, good readers of FTO. But truth be told, we actually believed that the woods might have held something worth skiing. This turned out not to be the case.
We proceeded to scrape our way down Angle's Wiggle. Certainly my most harrowing ski down this gentle trail. The groomers had hit it but you really would not have known without the tell tale frozen corduroy tracks. There were many amazingly interesting ice patterns in the groomed and ungroomed sections of the trail.
Most noticable was the amount of blow down with many trees and branches littering the sides of the trails and the woods. Closer inspection found 1/2+ inch wide ice formed on the branches of trees. This must have been one hell of a storm and the transition was not as I had hoped. As someone else mentioned, we are in Spring skiing mode even if it isn't Spring, so we will need either another big dump or a warm corn snow day to make things better. Not sure how other mountains faired but based on our brief tour things don't look good.
Hey, but what a snow depth, right!??! :? Base depth really does not tell the full tale of a season. At least it should be a strong Spring skiing year. Given the saturation of the deep bases, even a warm Spring is going to take a long time to melt out this much snow.
That's okay, that is why I have a touring rig.... which I conveniently left at home. Oops.
:roll: Screw post holing, hiking I go! Thankfully my partner had a pack I could borrow for ski carry but post holing turned out not to be a concern because there was no powder any where. None. Went into the woods and maybe an inch or two tops had collected in drift locations only shortly before noon time. The wind had even picked the woods clean in addition to the trails.We made our way up to the last pitch Northway and made the decision to start heading back down because nothing looked worth the hike. Even the woods were blown clear to a wind blown barely breakable crust layer. I would like to say we did this for you, good readers of FTO. But truth be told, we actually believed that the woods might have held something worth skiing. This turned out not to be the case.
We proceeded to scrape our way down Angle's Wiggle. Certainly my most harrowing ski down this gentle trail. The groomers had hit it but you really would not have known without the tell tale frozen corduroy tracks. There were many amazingly interesting ice patterns in the groomed and ungroomed sections of the trail.
Most noticable was the amount of blow down with many trees and branches littering the sides of the trails and the woods. Closer inspection found 1/2+ inch wide ice formed on the branches of trees. This must have been one hell of a storm and the transition was not as I had hoped. As someone else mentioned, we are in Spring skiing mode even if it isn't Spring, so we will need either another big dump or a warm corn snow day to make things better. Not sure how other mountains faired but based on our brief tour things don't look good.
Hey, but what a snow depth, right!??! :? Base depth really does not tell the full tale of a season. At least it should be a strong Spring skiing year. Given the saturation of the deep bases, even a warm Spring is going to take a long time to melt out this much snow.
