Unimpressive Start to 20/21 Ski Season

[Tony Crocker]

Hopefully this is the low point of the 2020-21 season:

Utah and parts of the Southwest are forecast to get up to two feet by the end of this weekend. Liz' clinic in Utah is Jan. 28-29.

[tseeb]

Not sure when they did it, but from looking at open lifts and trails, Heavenly is no longer running Mott. And the only way to ski to CA base is Roundabout, starting from past Groove and Powder Bowl chairs, which means a bit of pole-ing or skating (but still better than down-loading). Heavenly was unable to run CA lifts on Wed. as windstorm, which kept both Heavenly and Kirkwood from opening on Tuesday, took out a power line.

Dodge Ridge also had a lot of damage from windstorm. Following is from TGR Central CA thread (and posted by a guy who I think patrolled at both Dodge and Bear Valley. Also note that chair 8 is their Backside/best chair):
"DR sustained considerable damage in the windstorm early this week. Hundreds of trees uprooted. They might not open this weeBkend. Chair 8 de-roped over a seven tower span. It might be done for the season. Radio comm shell destroyed. Wind hit 130mph before the anemometer blew apart."

[snowave]

For the McCall area resorts in ID...

Only a few new inches of snow since our rain/snow/wind event of 1/12-1/13. A friend is visiting this past week, and we have hit Brundage and Tamarack 3 times. Groomers at both resorts have been very good, but starting to veer toward hard pack. Off Piste has not recovered from that last storm event, and is literally awful. Thankfully, the possibility of significant snow is in the forecast for the next week or so.

Liftlines this weekend ... Saturday at Brundage had consistent 10-15 min liftlines at the Bluebird express, 0-5 min at all other lifts. Sunday at Tamarack had no liftlines. Today at Brundage (Monday) was pretty empty.

[snowave]

about 2ft of snow so far at Brundage the last few days. Went up today, and it was pretty deep, but snow was getting a little heavy as temps rose today. Unfortunately, half of Idaho was there as the liftline at Bluebird was 20 min wait late all morning. Centennial lift was not running again, due to staffing shortages.

[flyover]

The B.C. regulations Mustang mentions must not be mandatory or else other places would not be open.
Chatter Creek appears to be open: https://chattercreek.ca/chatter-creek-a ... -2020-2021

Monashee Powder Cats is open for Canadians and offering shorter trips: https://www.monasheepowder.com/rates-dates

But Baldface has cancelled its entire season: https://baldface.com

In other news, Valhalla cat skiing was formerly affiliated with Snowwater heliskiing. Snowwater sold Valhalla to Baldface, who will continue to run it as a day operation, though presumably not this season.

K3 Snowcat, the tenure just west of Mustang, appears to be open for both day and lodge skiing: https://www.k3catski.com/availability.htm

Mustang has cancelled its season: https://www.mustangpowder.com/

[Tony Crocker]

The past month has seen a significant turnaround from the low point:

My region weighted average of ski area snowfall was 80% of normal a month ago and is at 91% now.

[EMSC]

My region weighted average

That's a mouthful. Are you referring to calling the entire western US a "region".

[Tony Crocker]

My region weighted average

That's a mouthful. Are you referring to calling the entire western US a "region".

No, 8 equally weighted regions:
California (includes AZ)
Pacific Northwest (includes Whistler)
Interior Western Canada
US Northern Rockies
Utah
Northern and Central Colorado
Southern and Western Colorado (includes Taos)
Northeast

[EMSC]

Ahhh, OK. That's how your bestsnow stats are organized; but the generic term "My region weighted average" didn't make sense when I looked at it. I thought you were talking about just one of the regions, not the average of all your regions in North America overall. Makes sense now.

[Tony Crocker]

LCC's ski season moved into the too impressive category this past week with 60 hours of interlodge while it was dumping 8 feet.