Today was a good example of not over thinking the forecasts before 5am on a given day!
Looked like Saturday and Sunday would be fairly comparable – more sun Saturday, more warmth Sunday with still plenty enough sun…….Based on second hand reports Saturday was sunny, crowded – biggest crowd of the season so far, very icy on the lower mountain, colder than expected, the ski patrol was extra busy (head guy got to use a sled 4 times – his first time with that many in one day). Today – greyer (looked almost grim at 10:30), nobody on the mountain (Thanks SeaHawks – may you win out, that will make for many nice un-crowded ski days), surprisingly nice grooming on Lucky (made for 3 fast easy smooth runs early). Luckily as is typical the clouds kept parting and there were a few sun breaks and the vis stayed nice enough to keep the sunny goggle lens. Now that BP is open (line I was doing was skiable and challengingly fun to keep me awake) the best of all conditions is available – ski Powder Bowl and dart into BearPits! The main bowl of PB was more perfectly smooth and carveable than any place else on the mountain – fast and sweet, by far the best grooming. Then a nice stay awake run down BP’s– yee haa fun! Which was lucky cause by mid day Lucky was maybe not so pleasant. Best runs – GV Bowl skier right into any pitch down lower, SnortElk Bowl just skier right of the normal groomed slot and surprisingly the bottom gully run out, PB/BP’s! (could use a little more traffic in some of the lines in the Pits to make it really nice, lowest part of the Pits did get heat and sun impacted from yesterday and going through the woods back to Gandys was very icy entertaining).
Other – Soup in CB lodge as predicted was left over Loaded Potatoes, base had Ched Broc. No lift lines today and even less once the SeaHawks game started. Big views south early of cloud covered Adams and Hood. Stump Farm and Skid road at the end seemed to ski nice enough. Pay lot not full (at least with pay lot folks), B sort of full to the Shuttle stop, C lot similar. A little wet precip at the base when I was leaving and lots of folks wandering around. Had fun – duh! Those forecasts don’t look that good most of this week.
