Walt gets a lift on the Bunny Buster Poma

Walt gets a lift on the Bunny Buster Poma

I had the opportunity to get out on the mountain for several hours this morning. Temperatures dipped last night into the low 20's. I was expecting firm and chattering surfaces for the early morning runs, but the mountain was surprisingly soft.

Today was a pretty simple ski day, a half a dozen or so runs limited to trails groomed last night. They included Rime, Reason, Great Northern, East Falls, Chute, Bunny Buster, Mouse Trap, and Superstar. In addition, others in the group skied Upper Skye Lark and Lower Bitter Sweet instead of doing Superstar.

All of the trails were very soft packed powder. The initial runs were on soft corduroy. Very quickly, however, the runs turned to soft little bumps as skier and rider traffic increased. Snow cover on all of the trails was generally excellent, with few exposed surfaces. The exception was Mouse Trap which has noticeable bare spots down skiers right. Skiers left on Mouse Trap was well covered.

Superstar was the most technically demanding. The upper headwall is turning to corn, but the pitch and cover still support broad sweeping turns. Middle Superstar and Lower Superstar were characterized by little, well spaced, soft bumps. Many turns were required to navigate Superstar after coming down the headwall, but all in all it was a good leg work out.

Temperatures are expected to stay near or above freezing most of the week. From what I saw today, I would expect surface conditions would continue in the spring skiing regime for the remainder of the week into the weekend. Let it snow!