After several weeks of what seemed like a repeat of Ice Age 2:The Melt Down, winter has finally returned in the 'Boat and locals were up bright and early this morning tasting 9 new in 24. What fell yesterday squashed nicely into the base, filling in between bumps, holes, and patches, so that when today's half-a-foot fell, it was icing on the cake.
We made turned chair on Four Points into a rare lap back to Storm for what was our best run down Cyclone all year. 5" new on a fresh mow, meow. Big swooping GS turns, we cut first tracks down that baby all the way to a slightly bumped Drop Out for 11th chair on Storm, not bad. They were all chomping at the bit, and we'd had one long, gloriously powderific run. No complaints.
Storm Peak Express took us through the soupy morning fog - visibility, one chair - to the top, where it was hard to shake off the vertigo on Storm Face, but once you got dropped over the ridge the snow was buttery and deep in the meadow, already push piles on Sunset (First Trackers delight this morning!), and then glorious again in Moonlight Trees.
Where to next was the big question, and we decided to taste the trees- as normal, 1230, 130, and Wristband- that big open glade below the trees between Rolex and Westside, tasty. Ramrod, Buckshot, treeline off Sunshine, Westside Ridge; everywhere was nicely frosted with thick buttery, cream cheese-tastic Champagne Powder!
When you hear "5" fell in the last 24 hours and none since the mountain closed," you tend to think, do I bother? But it had been a week since I had, and Craig goes up nearly every day, so yeah, we bothered. And it wasn't quite a powder day, but it'll do. We had to work a little for the stashes, but they were there.
The trees were barely tracked- Wristband was among today's favorites, and didn't get to Pumphouse or 130 today but tasted Kodak and some Morningside trees, the upper trees above Big Meadow, 1230, Twister, Ramrod and area, and the woods off Sundial were all close to knee-deep with the soft stuff. The groomers produced as well... all soft and givey, which was good for the flatlight- because the weather was the weirdest factor today by far.
It was absolutely puking on our first ride up Morningside and warmer over there, the snow coming in from Buff and the Zirkels. But it was sunny on our first ride up Sundown, with some misty flakes in the air. Then a fog layer dropped over the peaks and visibility disappeared. About 10 minutes later, some more sun on Westside for us. By the time we got down, it was snowing again. What do they say about Colorado? "You don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes."
-See you in the deep!
Unquestionably the best day and best powder we've had all year, today brought a reported minimal 8" of new in the last 24 but it was definitely more like a foot in spots as usual.
First chair up Christie to Four Points, we made our fresh knee-high turns down into Moonlight trees in light powder with Keith and Jesse, and headed up Sundown to seek out the stashes before the Saturday mob arrived. From the top we did "Keith's Ridge" under the top of Sunshine Lift Line, where visibility was pretty minimal under a thick fog but the snow was downright glorious.
From there we hit OneOClock to find some tree stashes, which were so nice we did 1230 first then 130 later on when we caught up with Drew and Jeannie from Colorado Springs. ("Look there's a whole flock of em!" -Texan says about the monoskiers.) The trees below the Duster cat track were mint, but what was groomed was also nice with about 4" on top of fresh cord.
We also found some goodies in the Sundial area trees, on Ramrod and Buckshot, and frankly, there isn't a bad run out there today! We didn't burn out until about 11, shocker, since we haven't had this much snow to burn the quads since ... well, April 2009 maybe. :)
Both Westside and Rolex were lovely, for Westside, I rode the left side into the trees towards Broadway for shin-deep stuff; and Rolex had "hero" bumps up to my waist in spots. We found similar on Hurricane, and ducked into the trees back to Rainbow for the stashes there. DIVINE!
Just like that, one day of the good and the bare and not-so-nice spots are filling in very nicely- Sundown Liftline, Thunderhead Liftline, and Sunshine Liftline were all back to excellent.
Finally, we have some deep! And hopefully more of it. Real soon.