I left home at 6:30, had this bluebird view driving up Mt. Baldy road.
The roads were again clean, but I arrived in a traffic lineup by Snowcrest Lodge at 7:35. It turns out the parking lot gate was closed until 7AM, so it took half an hour to get by the parking attendant. The ticket line was half an hour, about 5 minutes shorter than Monday, but its length had doubled by the time I was waiting for chair 1.
The first skiers coming down chair 1 said there was almost no powder; it was nearly all windpacked and there were some firm spots in places that had direct sun Thursday afternoon. View about 3/4 of the way up chair 1:
I got to the top of chair 1 at 9:25 and the attendant guessed that Thunder would open in 45 minutes. I decided to wait for that because:
1) That ticket line told me I was ahead of the biggest crowd so worth waiting to get a couple of clean runs on Thunder.
2) When the Thunder line got huge later, I could then ski chair 1. Its windpacked snow wouldn't be any different later on and maybe the firm spots would soften.
View of Goldridge center and some of Thunder core area right while skiing down Beginner Gulch.
The only rule at Baldy is that you won't get what you expect. On Monday I was told Thunder would open at noon and it opened at 10:45 while I was on chair 1 and then taking a break from the weather in the lodge. So naturally Friday the wait for Thunder was over 2 hours and it opened at 11:43. Weather was not an issue on Friday, as the wait for Thunder was in blazing March sun.
I dumped my midlayer and hat and switched to my lightest weight gloves for the rest of the day. This was an example of a day when skiing with a helmet would have been miserable for me.
During the wait a few snowboarders bootpacked up Skyline.
Good view of the windpacked snow as I boarded Thunder:
More higher up on Liftline and Emile's:
I got a quick cruise down Emile's and another one on Robin's as Baldy temporarily had a shorter separate line for the people coming down from their first Thunder run. Snow on NW facing Thunder runs was softer than on chair 1 due to no melt/freeze on Thursday. After those two runs there was one big liftline at 12:20 which I timed at 20 minutes.
My third run was Herb's Hollow (patrol did not let people go down the Fire Road on the first two runs). It was in full spring mode and the wide open parts were free of death cookies.
Zoomed view of 10,000 foot top of Mt. Baldy from top of Thunder:
Adam has the big SE facing bowl there as a spring backcountry ski objective.
I skied Goldridge and Skyline in chalky packed powder. View from lower Skyline of chair 2/Beginner Gulch:
In far upper left background are some of the closed chair 4 runs. Baldy says they will work on getting chair 4 open sometime Saturday.
Robin's Trees were sufficiently sheltered that not many tree bombs were dropping there. Some death cookies were also created by forceful skier/snowboarder turns, but the area between Emile's and Liftline remained smooth so I skied that twice. I took one exploration into Clementine's skier's left of Goldridge. Partway in an open spring snow line down to Robin's similar to Herb's opened up so I skied that.
By 2:45 I had skied 9 Thunder runs and decided I should check out the lower mountain while I had any energy left. Overview of Thunder from the fire road under chair 2 below the equipment shed:
I first skied Nightmare.
The lower runs had a lot of snow bombs from the trees by this time and might have skied better early in the morning. But these slopes are fairly wide open so I could link smoother sections. And at this time of day the sun exposed spring snow skied as easily as the chalky packed powder.
Next up was Morgan's, profile view here:
Morgan's is not well defined. It's the entire lightly treed area between Nightmare and Bentley's, a prime area for repeat laps on powder days.
My last run was on Bentley's.
The slopes skier's left of the main gully drainage tilt NW and retain winter snow most of the way down.
I skied 13,800 vertical, a workout equivalent to twice as much at most ski areas. But Friday's skiing was more fluid and continuous than Monday's despite no powder. Going forward the skiing will be much better due to the windpacking, as there was already corn in some places. In March 2005 some of the churned set up powder took a month to smooth out and become enjoyable spring skiing. With over half the terrain (including soon to be opened chair 4, Eric's, etc.) already in spring mode, the best ski days going forward will be the warm ones.
I left at 4:30 and had a clean exit down the road past some snowplayers. I know James enjoys the pics of pickup trucks taking snow home.
The roads were again clean, but I arrived in a traffic lineup by Snowcrest Lodge at 7:35. It turns out the parking lot gate was closed until 7AM, so it took half an hour to get by the parking attendant. The ticket line was half an hour, about 5 minutes shorter than Monday, but its length had doubled by the time I was waiting for chair 1.
The first skiers coming down chair 1 said there was almost no powder; it was nearly all windpacked and there were some firm spots in places that had direct sun Thursday afternoon. View about 3/4 of the way up chair 1:
I got to the top of chair 1 at 9:25 and the attendant guessed that Thunder would open in 45 minutes. I decided to wait for that because:
1) That ticket line told me I was ahead of the biggest crowd so worth waiting to get a couple of clean runs on Thunder.
2) When the Thunder line got huge later, I could then ski chair 1. Its windpacked snow wouldn't be any different later on and maybe the firm spots would soften.
View of Goldridge center and some of Thunder core area right while skiing down Beginner Gulch.
The only rule at Baldy is that you won't get what you expect. On Monday I was told Thunder would open at noon and it opened at 10:45 while I was on chair 1 and then taking a break from the weather in the lodge. So naturally Friday the wait for Thunder was over 2 hours and it opened at 11:43. Weather was not an issue on Friday, as the wait for Thunder was in blazing March sun.
I dumped my midlayer and hat and switched to my lightest weight gloves for the rest of the day. This was an example of a day when skiing with a helmet would have been miserable for me.
During the wait a few snowboarders bootpacked up Skyline.
Good view of the windpacked snow as I boarded Thunder:
More higher up on Liftline and Emile's:
I got a quick cruise down Emile's and another one on Robin's as Baldy temporarily had a shorter separate line for the people coming down from their first Thunder run. Snow on NW facing Thunder runs was softer than on chair 1 due to no melt/freeze on Thursday. After those two runs there was one big liftline at 12:20 which I timed at 20 minutes.
On Thursday only the sunniest areas lost snow from the trees, but it was happening all day long Friday. South Bowl was marked closed Friday. That didn't stop me from skiing it Monday, but I decided it wasn't worth the effort Friday as in windpack it wouldn't be any better than the easier accessed runs.
My third run was Herb's Hollow (patrol did not let people go down the Fire Road on the first two runs). It was in full spring mode and the wide open parts were free of death cookies.
Zoomed view of 10,000 foot top of Mt. Baldy from top of Thunder:
Adam has the big SE facing bowl there as a spring backcountry ski objective.
I skied Goldridge and Skyline in chalky packed powder. View from lower Skyline of chair 2/Beginner Gulch:
In far upper left background are some of the closed chair 4 runs. Baldy says they will work on getting chair 4 open sometime Saturday.
Robin's Trees were sufficiently sheltered that not many tree bombs were dropping there. Some death cookies were also created by forceful skier/snowboarder turns, but the area between Emile's and Liftline remained smooth so I skied that twice. I took one exploration into Clementine's skier's left of Goldridge. Partway in an open spring snow line down to Robin's similar to Herb's opened up so I skied that.
By 2:45 I had skied 9 Thunder runs and decided I should check out the lower mountain while I had any energy left. Overview of Thunder from the fire road under chair 2 below the equipment shed:
I first skied Nightmare.
The lower runs had a lot of snow bombs from the trees by this time and might have skied better early in the morning. But these slopes are fairly wide open so I could link smoother sections. And at this time of day the sun exposed spring snow skied as easily as the chalky packed powder.
Next up was Morgan's, profile view here:
Morgan's is not well defined. It's the entire lightly treed area between Nightmare and Bentley's, a prime area for repeat laps on powder days.
My last run was on Bentley's.
The slopes skier's left of the main gully drainage tilt NW and retain winter snow most of the way down.
I skied 13,800 vertical, a workout equivalent to twice as much at most ski areas. But Friday's skiing was more fluid and continuous than Monday's despite no powder. Going forward the skiing will be much better due to the windpacking, as there was already corn in some places. In March 2005 some of the churned set up powder took a month to smooth out and become enjoyable spring skiing. With over half the terrain (including soon to be opened chair 4, Eric's, etc.) already in spring mode, the best ski days going forward will be the warm ones.
I left at 4:30 and had a clean exit down the road past some snowplayers. I know James enjoys the pics of pickup trucks taking snow home.
Last edited:
