With the forecast of high winds and vacillating temperatures at Squaw and Alpine, we decided to save our free days for our backcountry tours in April. We saw the storms heading to Idaho and decided to drive east then north. We arrived in Sun Valley as were the racers for the big Nordic Race and activities this weekend. We picked up our free tickets, using our Mountain Collective passes, at the Warm Springs area. Warm Springs Lodge is where the locals park for a 100 foot walk to the lifts; plus at the end of the day you can ski down to your vehicle.
Overnight 2” fell and it snowed all day for an additional 6”more. The top 10 percent of the mountain was in a cloud bank with minimal visibility. Skiing at the top was slow and careful until you could see where you were going. The fresh snow was wonderful, but it did not last long. For the first 2 hours the skiing was great, then we took a break and the conditions changed with a warming trend. The locals hit the area fast and naturally knew the “spots”. The ungroomed terrain did not have many skiers as the new snow was not deep enough to cover the old tracks and the warming was coming. We skied until noon when I realized that I needed to tune our edges. By noon we noticed the locals leaving – it was still snowing and the comments heard were that it was “wet snow”. Sounds familiar. More snow is coming, but I just read a forecast of rain/snow... Hmmm.
