Glorious day up there today friends; Steamboat is inching towards max opening and today was an outstanding advance in the right direction. The Gondy line was enormous, full of the weekend warriors and the usual faces in front, we bypassed to the disabled entrance, loaded, and made it down to Storm to collect with the early rising hikers and staff for some fresh powder. The ride down Rudys was mint: 3" of fresh or so on top of a blanket of cord? Oh my. It was a all-layers morning, 6° at the summit, giving the snow the lightness we love.
From Storm Peak we headed right over to the sunny side and caught first tracks down 2 O'Clock, almost over Craig's head in spots, we bombed through the bumps like butter all the way down Daybreak without a sound. Silent carving, deLIGHTful.
Up Sundown and down Sunshine Lift Line, through the trees to the right and over to Fawn, again first tracks, and almost too deep to surf with tacky wax and flatter momentum. Big GS turns down Fawn to South Peak, all to ourselves.
Up South Peak and down Westside, maybe 5th tracks or so, again bombing through buttery snow and loving every minute of it, despite the goggle steam and icing corners of the lenses... I made a pitstop into the shack to warm them up at the top of Sundown, and the boys did a lap without me, spending most of it chilling out (literally) on a stopped Sundown lift.
Then onward to our last runs, traversed to Storm Face, through the meadow and down Rainbow; tasty freshies to the left side, down to Storm Express for a top-to-bottom- which included Rainbow again it was so nice. These are the days we live here for.
What's new? They're blasting snow on Moonlight and Vagabond, and they opened Thunderhead lift around 9am... as we inch towards 100% and hopefully a 100" base...
See you in the Deep-
WOO HOO!