Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:45 pm
Part trip report, part long story.
Drove up Saturday morning and were on snow a little after 10. The mountain had been promoting that there had been good temps for snowmaking, and the guns were still on. They stayed on until somewhere around mid-day IIRC. Cover was solid on what was open, and varied between higher-moisture content just-shot-out-of-the-snowmaker snow, and a bit nicer manmade, all on top of hardpack and ice in places (which generally stayed pretty covered up until mid-afternoon).
Sometime during the afternoon, clouds blew over and it started to snow. Falling from the sky kind of snow, which was the first time I've seen it this year. My daughter even managed to catch some on her tongue before it stopped about 10 minutes later (pics below).
Stayed mostly on the Big Acorn lift and had variable conditions on the top of Eagles Swoop and nice on the bottom half. Tequila was a bit icy through the center, but the top portion of Tyro and Lower Sunrise skied well. And Upper Sunrise was in the best shape of them all. And was finally able to convince my kids to ski it, which turned out to be pretty easy given the good conditions.
After some success there, convinced them it was time to head to The Highlands, since none of what was open over there was any steeper than Upper Sunrise. They stopped for some hot chocolate with my wife while I went for a lap on Highlands to make sure there were no surprises (this was around 3). In decent shape, so went in for hot chocolate. Half hour later, Lower Wild Turkey was uneventful. My son even asked if it was really a black diamond (which was followed by an explanation of what a black diamond was in the southeast versus out west). Wind had really started to pick up, so when we got to the top of the lift, the cat track had been blown clean and was just total hardpack. At the top of Upper Cliffhanger, had to look for any decent snow, which was limited to a couple feet on either side of the slope. The rest of the face had been blown clean and was a combo of hardpack and boilerplate ice. Lots of carnage as people couldn't control themselves (yet my kids were on their feet, slow, but making turns). Unfortunately, one of those was a snowboarder who literally was not able to stop coming down the cat track and slid 20 yards down the slope directly into my 7 y.o. He took her down, and she immediately burst into tears. At this point, my 9 y.o. is freaking out b/c of the ice and I'm trying to comfort the 7 y.o. Things are going south fast. Ski patrol shows up like a minute later, since they're clearing the slope to shut it down early b/c of the ice. The patroller doesn't think there's anything wrong with her (and I didn't either), but once she heard she could get a ride in a sled, she was all about it. So sled shows up, they splint her, load her up and take her down to Checkerberry. Waits there for a few minutes, then gets loaded into the snowmobile trailer and taken up to the patrol shack, where she got to watch TV. It was golf, but anything with a glowing screen is a plus for her. 9 y.o. has miraculously recovered from his freak out, and wants to head back out to do some laps on Sunrise. So we did that for a few minutes until the wind was beating us into submission and then called it a day around 5.30.
This morning, woke to reports of temps in the single digits with wind chill in the negative double digits. So decided to hang in the hotel for a while, and bag the skiing today. Heard from friends staying at the mountain that they made the same call.
Drove up Saturday morning and were on snow a little after 10. The mountain had been promoting that there had been good temps for snowmaking, and the guns were still on. They stayed on until somewhere around mid-day IIRC. Cover was solid on what was open, and varied between higher-moisture content just-shot-out-of-the-snowmaker snow, and a bit nicer manmade, all on top of hardpack and ice in places (which generally stayed pretty covered up until mid-afternoon).
Sometime during the afternoon, clouds blew over and it started to snow. Falling from the sky kind of snow, which was the first time I've seen it this year. My daughter even managed to catch some on her tongue before it stopped about 10 minutes later (pics below).
Stayed mostly on the Big Acorn lift and had variable conditions on the top of Eagles Swoop and nice on the bottom half. Tequila was a bit icy through the center, but the top portion of Tyro and Lower Sunrise skied well. And Upper Sunrise was in the best shape of them all. And was finally able to convince my kids to ski it, which turned out to be pretty easy given the good conditions.
After some success there, convinced them it was time to head to The Highlands, since none of what was open over there was any steeper than Upper Sunrise. They stopped for some hot chocolate with my wife while I went for a lap on Highlands to make sure there were no surprises (this was around 3). In decent shape, so went in for hot chocolate. Half hour later, Lower Wild Turkey was uneventful. My son even asked if it was really a black diamond (which was followed by an explanation of what a black diamond was in the southeast versus out west). Wind had really started to pick up, so when we got to the top of the lift, the cat track had been blown clean and was just total hardpack. At the top of Upper Cliffhanger, had to look for any decent snow, which was limited to a couple feet on either side of the slope. The rest of the face had been blown clean and was a combo of hardpack and boilerplate ice. Lots of carnage as people couldn't control themselves (yet my kids were on their feet, slow, but making turns). Unfortunately, one of those was a snowboarder who literally was not able to stop coming down the cat track and slid 20 yards down the slope directly into my 7 y.o. He took her down, and she immediately burst into tears. At this point, my 9 y.o. is freaking out b/c of the ice and I'm trying to comfort the 7 y.o. Things are going south fast. Ski patrol shows up like a minute later, since they're clearing the slope to shut it down early b/c of the ice. The patroller doesn't think there's anything wrong with her (and I didn't either), but once she heard she could get a ride in a sled, she was all about it. So sled shows up, they splint her, load her up and take her down to Checkerberry. Waits there for a few minutes, then gets loaded into the snowmobile trailer and taken up to the patrol shack, where she got to watch TV. It was golf, but anything with a glowing screen is a plus for her. 9 y.o. has miraculously recovered from his freak out, and wants to head back out to do some laps on Sunrise. So we did that for a few minutes until the wind was beating us into submission and then called it a day around 5.30.
This morning, woke to reports of temps in the single digits with wind chill in the negative double digits. So decided to hang in the hotel for a while, and bag the skiing today. Heard from friends staying at the mountain that they made the same call.
