January 19, 2012. Mission Ridge

Sorry to say given my expectations the skiing was not what I had planed for. Skied up there yesterday afternoon (hiking) and the snow was just fantastic, temperature was ~14F and it was cold smoke. Today temperatures had climbed, and perhaps some wind effect, which added up to less than champagne powder. There was a big crowd (for Mission) and delays opening the chair to the top of the mountain, which created long lines at the only chair to higher terrain. This put all the power crazed skiers consuming the untracked snow in a relatively small area for several hours before the rest of the mountain was open. My expectations were probably unreasonable high, and it was power skiing, just not the quality I was planning for.

Ditto.

+3

What a sh*tshow it was until just after 10:30 when the quad finally started loading. I ended up with 3 on 3, 3 more on 2 and finished with a hike to Bowl 4. While I didn't get anything to slide with ski cutting there was evidence of the snow control work by patrol (bomb holes and short slides).

Here's a pic from the Mission Ridge Facebook page; I don't think I would have posted something that looks like this. The time would have been about 9:10 or so because I wasn't standing in line yet (took 20 mins to load).