tseeb
Well-known member
Saturday 2/25/23
After picking up Glenn’s daughter’s friend, then Glenn’s friend in SE Bend we did not make it through Century Drive roundabout leaving Bend by 7:15 on this Saturday. But we still arrived about 8 AM and had good parking. Glenn and I took a lap on Red while his friend did not as he only has a 4-day pass since Bachelor no longer offers the 12-day he used to buy and his son is at college in Klamath Falls so he is not skiing as much. After skiing a groomer, we loaded Pine Marten and skied a groomed Outback run continuing to Northwest chair that we would ride 6x.
Everyone says Northwest is running on backup diesel. When we counted how long it took for opposing chairs to pass early when lightly loaded it was 4 seconds, but as chair filled it went up to first 6, then over 7 seconds. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a chair slow down due to load. When I shared Pine Marten lift with a liftee, who also said Bachelor had 9K people on this bluebird Saturday, later what the backup plan was when running on backup diesel, he said there is a low power electric motor they can use to unload chair. I’m not sure how long main electric has been down or why it is taking weeks to replace
We continued to ride excellent groomers, then did a West Bowl run. Bachelor had 13” Wednesday morning and lower part of West Bowl in trees was much more pleasant, with some small untracked patches, than 2 weeks earlier when it was refrozen. People were hoping for Summit to open for first time Friday after the new snow earlier in week and some had lined up as it was running, but it never loaded. On Saturday, we waited for line to go down about and had 5-6 min wait. We traversed W at the top above the South Bowls to take some pictures at Wall of Voodoo which seemed more impressive than 2 weeks ago although I was able to get to top of it. I’d thought about jumping off it, but was afraid I’d land flat after dropping 30’. The route we skied off S of there was very good, mostly packed powder for a while. Then I thought the other two guys had continued to SW while I tried a more lightly tracked S-facing that was not tracked out. But they followed me and both went down in soft, 3-4 day old snow.
Glenn quickly recovered and skied down to me, but his friend could not handle the deep old snow and would take 5 mins. to get his skis on, then crash again after going 10’. I tried leading him on a traverse, but he continued the 5 mins. to get his skis on, then crash again after going 10’. After a half hour or more of this I continued the traverse I was setting and found some steep lightly tracked to ski to the catchline.
I took one lap on Devil’s Backbone exiting far enough skiers right to get Outback which I rode to ski to main base. I had a 2 PM Zoom call on one of my Mom’s bad investments that I made with 3 minutes to spare, taking it on a bench outside building in parking lot with a beer . SkiTracks had me at 13 lift/19.4K so I counted it as 20.5K. (May add more pictures later)
Sunday 2/26/23
We did not have to pickup anyone, but after getting two 15 year-old girls going, we did not make our 8 AM planned departure, plus there was overnight snow down to Bend, so we had moderate traffic most of the way to Bachelor although it improved once past a vehicle that could make it up the not steep road. Pine Marten chair and many others were not running when we loaded slow Red chair about 9:30. Bachelor had reported 1” new but there was at least 3 in parking lot and it would snow, very heavily at times, all day. Our line for Red was 10 minutes for 2nd lap. The new snow was dry and fun, but usually not enough to keep you off the hard layer underneath. Pine Marten opened so we took a few laps skiing untracked along edges of runs, and in trees, but they were often thick enough to not let new snow get to ground. We talked to host at top who didn’t think already spinning Outback would load and recommended Leeway which we skied in deepening, new untracked new snow. I caught, then set the mostly gravity traverse that cuts across Cinder Cone, about halfway up it. I took pictures of Glenn skiing the deepening new snow over a soft base and was rewarded with him nearly running into me and burying my gloves.
We skied more new snow over soft base in trees below, then traversed and poled some to get back just below Pine Marten. Outback had opened and we skied three laps in the new snow there, twice going into trees to skiers left and once going down the old Outback liftline where Glenn took a picture of me by one of the obsidian outcrops sticking out of the snow.
After a short break in upper lodge, we traversed across the mountain, nearly blindly at beginning and got to Cloudchaser about 1/4 of the way above base. We took two laps in great low angle powder a couple of ridges past Wanoga. We would find the Sunrise road too soon, but got more powder in trees when we saw we were getting close to Wanoga. We did one more Pine Marten chair, skiing Leeway and mostly gravity into Cinder Cone before meeting girls at truck about 3:40. A Tesla was barely getting out of parking lot and snow had drifted onto leeward sides of parked cars. Traffic going back to Bend was good.
Monday 2/27/2023
My original plan was to leave Bend early enough today to get a half-day at Shasta, which besides breaking up drive, would avoid catching Bay Area evening commute traffic. But I still have free Ikon days at Bachelor, friends are OK with me staying four nights instead of originally planned two and with 4-6” new predicted for today and 6-10” tonight, I’m skiing today her and tomorrow AM. Probably no Summit, but hopefully will get Northwest with a light load and deep snow.
After picking up Glenn’s daughter’s friend, then Glenn’s friend in SE Bend we did not make it through Century Drive roundabout leaving Bend by 7:15 on this Saturday. But we still arrived about 8 AM and had good parking. Glenn and I took a lap on Red while his friend did not as he only has a 4-day pass since Bachelor no longer offers the 12-day he used to buy and his son is at college in Klamath Falls so he is not skiing as much. After skiing a groomer, we loaded Pine Marten and skied a groomed Outback run continuing to Northwest chair that we would ride 6x.
Everyone says Northwest is running on backup diesel. When we counted how long it took for opposing chairs to pass early when lightly loaded it was 4 seconds, but as chair filled it went up to first 6, then over 7 seconds. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a chair slow down due to load. When I shared Pine Marten lift with a liftee, who also said Bachelor had 9K people on this bluebird Saturday, later what the backup plan was when running on backup diesel, he said there is a low power electric motor they can use to unload chair. I’m not sure how long main electric has been down or why it is taking weeks to replace
We continued to ride excellent groomers, then did a West Bowl run. Bachelor had 13” Wednesday morning and lower part of West Bowl in trees was much more pleasant, with some small untracked patches, than 2 weeks earlier when it was refrozen. People were hoping for Summit to open for first time Friday after the new snow earlier in week and some had lined up as it was running, but it never loaded. On Saturday, we waited for line to go down about and had 5-6 min wait. We traversed W at the top above the South Bowls to take some pictures at Wall of Voodoo which seemed more impressive than 2 weeks ago although I was able to get to top of it. I’d thought about jumping off it, but was afraid I’d land flat after dropping 30’. The route we skied off S of there was very good, mostly packed powder for a while. Then I thought the other two guys had continued to SW while I tried a more lightly tracked S-facing that was not tracked out. But they followed me and both went down in soft, 3-4 day old snow.
Sunday 2/26/23
We did not have to pickup anyone, but after getting two 15 year-old girls going, we did not make our 8 AM planned departure, plus there was overnight snow down to Bend, so we had moderate traffic most of the way to Bachelor although it improved once past a vehicle that could make it up the not steep road. Pine Marten chair and many others were not running when we loaded slow Red chair about 9:30. Bachelor had reported 1” new but there was at least 3 in parking lot and it would snow, very heavily at times, all day. Our line for Red was 10 minutes for 2nd lap. The new snow was dry and fun, but usually not enough to keep you off the hard layer underneath. Pine Marten opened so we took a few laps skiing untracked along edges of runs, and in trees, but they were often thick enough to not let new snow get to ground. We talked to host at top who didn’t think already spinning Outback would load and recommended Leeway which we skied in deepening, new untracked new snow. I caught, then set the mostly gravity traverse that cuts across Cinder Cone, about halfway up it. I took pictures of Glenn skiing the deepening new snow over a soft base and was rewarded with him nearly running into me and burying my gloves.
We skied more new snow over soft base in trees below, then traversed and poled some to get back just below Pine Marten. Outback had opened and we skied three laps in the new snow there, twice going into trees to skiers left and once going down the old Outback liftline where Glenn took a picture of me by one of the obsidian outcrops sticking out of the snow.
Monday 2/27/2023
My original plan was to leave Bend early enough today to get a half-day at Shasta, which besides breaking up drive, would avoid catching Bay Area evening commute traffic. But I still have free Ikon days at Bachelor, friends are OK with me staying four nights instead of originally planned two and with 4-6” new predicted for today and 6-10” tonight, I’m skiing today her and tomorrow AM. Probably no Summit, but hopefully will get Northwest with a light load and deep snow.
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