EMSC
Well-known member
After a chilly start to the week that had included over a foot of new snow at Winter Park, it had warmed up late week with temperatures only going a bit below freezing overnight Fri night. The best skiing was as early as they opened for about 90 minutes. Only the Mary Jane side is open to the public now and the Panoramic lift was not running due to mechanical issues.
Just softening snow first thing, even at top of Super Gauge/lunch rocks area. The exception early being anything shaded by trees being frozen solid. I lapped Sunnyside lift 3 times as its trails were in the still fast-ish, and perfectly softening stage. Then dropping back down to the base on Super gauge trail twice. Skiers right having been shaded just enough that as the sun exposed it it was in its best form of the day.
Bottom of Sunnyside early.
Looking at the closed Panorama lift.
Not a lot of areas that look like this, but there are a few...
The whole purpose of this trip is for race training for my son. They are skiing on the Winter Park side of the hill with team vans only allowed to drive up to the Snowasis mid-mtn lodge skiing Cranmer trail with gates, demo-ing race skis, etc... using the recently renamed Explorer express.
6:45a at the closed side...
After those 5 laps I almost accidentally met up with another racer parent. Taking a couple more laps on Sunnyside which about halfway down was turning into sticky glue snow in many areas. So we redirected back to the Super Gauge lift runs. Though a couple of those were also pretty dense and glue like, especially on the bump runs. Finally settling on skiers right of Mary Jane trail which in early am was heavily shaded and just now softened on the right edge. So no glue for a couple of runs.
Ditching for the day at 11:40a as race camp runs from 6:45a to noon and I had to drive the couple miles back to Winter Park base. Looks to be pretty close to a repeat for tomorrow's session. Something around 17K or 18K vert by my count for my 3 hours of skiing.
Just softening snow first thing, even at top of Super Gauge/lunch rocks area. The exception early being anything shaded by trees being frozen solid. I lapped Sunnyside lift 3 times as its trails were in the still fast-ish, and perfectly softening stage. Then dropping back down to the base on Super gauge trail twice. Skiers right having been shaded just enough that as the sun exposed it it was in its best form of the day.
Bottom of Sunnyside early.
Looking at the closed Panorama lift.
Not a lot of areas that look like this, but there are a few...
The whole purpose of this trip is for race training for my son. They are skiing on the Winter Park side of the hill with team vans only allowed to drive up to the Snowasis mid-mtn lodge skiing Cranmer trail with gates, demo-ing race skis, etc... using the recently renamed Explorer express.
6:45a at the closed side...
After those 5 laps I almost accidentally met up with another racer parent. Taking a couple more laps on Sunnyside which about halfway down was turning into sticky glue snow in many areas. So we redirected back to the Super Gauge lift runs. Though a couple of those were also pretty dense and glue like, especially on the bump runs. Finally settling on skiers right of Mary Jane trail which in early am was heavily shaded and just now softened on the right edge. So no glue for a couple of runs.
Ditching for the day at 11:40a as race camp runs from 6:45a to noon and I had to drive the couple miles back to Winter Park base. Looks to be pretty close to a repeat for tomorrow's session. Something around 17K or 18K vert by my count for my 3 hours of skiing.
