We opted for the marathon session tickets. Good call. We skied all morning to pretty awesome conditions and light crowds. The trees to the right of Rock Island were pretty soft and nice and made for some fun runs. Upper Omigosh was super soft and was perfect for huge GS turns flying down the mountain.
We stopped for lunch for an hour and a half to warm up as temperatures were pretty frigid. When we came back outside the snow had only gotten better. It snowed pretty much nonstop all day. The crowd was starting to grow, but it never got to more than ~1min lift wait on the double. Around 3pm they started to announce "If you have a two-wheel drive vehicle or are uncomfortable driving in these conditions, please leave the mountain now as the roads will get no better than they are now." Awesome. Thank you Subaru. The place quickly became a ghost-town and the wait became non-existant.
Around 5pm we stopped again for about an hour and a half to warm up and have a snack. When we returned to the slopes the conditions were incredible. The fast-falling snow combined with the absence of anybody on the slopes made for epic powder conditions. We were finding untouched all the way down Upper Omi, Alley Cat, and Rock Island. The trees were great for just flying through, though you did still have to watch for any brush. Between runs our tracks were being filled in by the wind, so every run was super fresh.
We pulled out around 8pm and when we scraped off the Subaru, there was over a foot of snow on it, a little more than the 6" the Cat reported
Tracks on Alley Cat
Side tracks under the lift on Alley Cat
Nice snow on Upper Omigosh was easy to find all day
Lower Omigosh even had great snow once there were only ~50 of us left on the mountain. It felt like our own private ski area
Interesting terrain is finally starting to open back up on the hill
It sure was a beautiful day to be on the sticks, even if my camera didn't do the best job conveying that.
P.S.: Not only was the snow great in quantity, it was super light and fluffy. Awesome. One of my favorite days of skiing ever. Plus, being on the mountain after they sent everybody home and closed the road to uphill traffic made me feel like a rockstar.
