Loveland, CO: 01/30/21

jamesdeluxe

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
Following my two warmup days at Cooper, Saturday morning I headed back toward Denver with it snowing hard while leaving Leadville. The forecast only called for 1-3 inches throughout the region but it was well past that as my two-wheel drive rental struggled to make it up a slick Fremont Pass and driving on I-70 from the Copper Mountain entrance to the Eisenhower Tunnel was likewise sporty.

I arrived at Loveland by 8:15 with six inches in the parking lot and snow coming down sideways. While the ambient temp was a comfortable 22, up to 30-mph gusts on the upper mountain brought the wind chill down around 0 so taking pix was a challenge and I only ended up with three photos for posterity.

The lower mountain during a short break in the precip:
20210130_122245-jpg.jpg


All of the lifts were open and it was really coming down. Given how little snow there's been this season, I didn't hit any rocks, even on several steep sections in the woods that I'd never skied before.
20210130_122407-jpg.jpg


A guy on the lift volunteered to take a pic of me on a knee-deep run off Lift 8 near the tunnel:
img-11-jpg.jpg


I skied nonstop from 8:30 to noon, at which time I had to head back to Denver. That coincided conveniently with my "early-season" legs saying no mas. Loveland's website only claimed nine inches from the storm but it felt like more than that, especially with the wind moving the snow around. I felt guilty leaving all that untracked snow on the table but those floaty turns were a great way to end the first days of my season. I'm looking forward to more fun at Loveland with the upper terrain open.

When I arrived at my brother's house in Denver an hour later, it was bluebird and this fox was sunning himself on his neighbor's roof:
img_0088-jpg.jpg
 
Chair 9 is not yet open according to Loveland's website, though it would be brutal in weather you describe.

That fox on the roof picture made Liz' day!
 
Tony Crocker":1ikrj0o1 said:
Chair 9 is not yet open according to Loveland's website, though it would be brutal in weather you describe.
Click to expand...
You're right, there's no way that chair would've been running in those winds. I was happy that all of the lower lifts were running; I don't believe that was the case on Thursday due to low-tide conditions. In any case, my ignoring your advice to drive five hours to Wolf Creek was prescient as I still nabbed a pow day with far less time in the car.
:bow:

Tony Crocker":1ikrj0o1 said:
That fox on the roof picture made Liz' day!
Click to expand...
People on the NY Ski Forum were likewise amused by it. We have red foxes near our house in NJ; however, they're thinner and wary of humans. The only time I see them is trotting around with a live squirrel in their mouths.
 
jamesdeluxe":3jovv06g said:
In any case, my ignoring your advice to drive five hours to Wolf Creek was prescient
Click to expand...

In more ways than one. I heard that Wolf Creek has never seen so many Denverites in the middle of the season before. Huge lift lines, etc... It would not have lived up to Jamesdeluxe expectations. Also, I'm pretty sure that Chair 8 only opened in the day or two before your visit last week.
 
EMSC":3jgyboox said:
I heard that Wolf Creek has never seen so many Denverites in the middle of the season before. Huge lift lines, etc.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what I heard from other Front Range sources and why I ran Tony's urgent recommendation through the Jamesdeluxe reality check. I simply don't have it in me anymore to go on long driving extravaganzas like that unless it's part of a larger road trip. Purgatory is on the Loveland season pass and I'd like to check it out at some point -- for nothing else than to add a new ski area to my lifetime list -- however, I'm not retired and don't have that kind of time (approx seven hours from southeast Denver) at my disposal.

EMSC":3jgyboox said:
I'm pretty sure that Chair 8 only opened in the day or two before your visit last week.
Click to expand...
Yep, it wasn't open when I picked up my pass last Thursday; however, it was running for Saturday's storm day. The terrain off that chair is very mellow so coverage was sufficient.
 
EMSC":39vb40z3 said:
jamesdeluxe":39vb40z3 said:
In any case, my ignoring your advice to drive five hours to Wolf Creek was prescient
Click to expand...

In more ways than one. I heard that Wolf Creek has never seen so many Denverites in the middle of the season before. Huge lift lines, etc... It would not have lived up to Jamesdeluxe expectations. Also, I'm pretty sure that Chair 8 only opened in the day or two before your visit last week.
Click to expand...

Liz and I were at Wolf Creek during Oklahoma spring break week in 2019, the parking lot was packed but lift lines were certainly reasonable. And the Oklahomans were probably not skiing Alberta much: plenty of powder and elbow room over there. With Denver people and COVID chair loading protocol it may be different now.

The bottom line is that with the Loveland Pass' extensive offerings, James really needs to ski out of somewhere other than Denver if he gets another full week this season. There's Bogus Basin and Brundage out of Boise, where we are headed this weekend. Even better is Spokane, where he gets Silver, Schweitzer and Whitefish.

Purgatory reached full operation with the big Southwest storm that also opened up Arizona Snowbowl. But those places are 6 hours apart and while worth visiting are not on a level with the interior Northwest areas out of Boise or Spokane.
 
I'm not saying anything James doesn't already know, but pass considerations aside, the options for affordable, low-skier density resorts with decent-to-outstanding terrain and reasonable-to-very-reliable snow within 4.5 hours of Spokane are kind of mind boggling, especially when the border is open. Better yet, that 4.5 hour radius around Spokane seems to include at least a couple of different storm tracks. Factor in a very low-stress airport with cheap, in-terminal car rental that is very quick to get in and out of, and Spokane makes a very good starting point for improvised dirt bag powder chasing, something that has become much more difficult to do in many other regions of the west since the advent of the multipass.
 
flyover":1h8m78mk said:
with cheap, in-terminal car rental that is very quick to get in and out of
Click to expand...
It's a moot point in 2021, but don't tell a car rental counter in Spokane that you're taking a car across the Canada border. They will insist you buy the ripoff insurance, even if you're covered by your own policy or a credit card.
 
flyover":d08l3qpz said:
with cheap, in-terminal car rental that is very quick to get in and out of
Click to expand...
That's one of the first things I mentioned in my 2013 article about the region, where I stuck to ski areas less than two hours from Spokane (and drove right past Silver Mountain due to time constraints):
https://nyskiblog.com/magazine/the-west ... i-resorts/


flyover":d08l3qpz said:
pass considerations aside, the options for affordable, low-skier density resorts with decent-to-outstanding terrain and reasonable-to-very-reliable snow within 4.5 hours of Spokane are kind of mind boggling
Click to expand...
My wife and I noted it enthusiastically during our week-long visit. To this day, you don't often hear about northeasterners or Californians relocating there to pursue all of great skiing options that Flyover mentions. I guess it still has the nagging reputation of being a "Breaking Bad"-style western city (google "Spokane" and "methadone clinic").

The flight time from EWR to Spokane (which is obviously too small to have nonstop connections from the East Coast) is an hour more than Zurich or Geneva so I'd opt for the latter in a normal season; however, desperate times/desperate measures.
 
James gets Silver Mt. because it is part of Powder Alliance. The special deals Loveland has outside Powder Alliance are with Powder Mt., Schweitzer, Whitefish, Brundage, the southwest Power Pass group (Purgatory, Sipapu, Pajarito, Arizona Snowbowl, Brian Head) and most of the smaller Colorado areas.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top