Thursday - High wind warnings apparently close the entire upper mountain. Lots of Snow!
I hopped a bus ride on the Gig Harbor ski bus. So didn't have to deal with Holiday ski crowd parking. Lift lines somewhat longer then weekday skiing. Not the madness of a weekend or earlier holiday.
Apparently the upper mountain was designated closed from the getgo due to high wind warnings. I believe lift tickets were lowered to $40.00 (I have a season pass). So chair six and Rex were non-op. I heard Gold Hills was open.. I never got around to actually looking up there. It didn't seem all that windy down below. However after lunch I noticed some wind gust up to about 40 mph. Some blasting in South Back as usual.
Weather was pretty windy and horizontal-snowy. Sometimes little tiny micro pellets. Sometimes some bigger chunks.
Morning seemed to offer somewhat groomed covered by fresh snow. Which gave pretty nice skiing. Later in the day it was bumped and skier chopped. Actually, we had fun skiing. I just get tired sooner. Good visibility in the morning despite the weather. Harder to see later in the afternoon. Really took my time eating lunch at the Snorting Elk and shared a pitcher of fresh Black Butte Porter with a couple of other skiers. Lodge Lounging is a skiing activity, afterall.
One of the effects of skiing in nasty weather is that I get so much practice in skiing bumpy runs in low visibility, that when visibility is good, I can cut quite an impressive line (according to my friends).
Other skiers sought out off-groom trails and such like Boongoggle.
There was enough deep snow around to keep everybody busy on the lower slope.
