Really good storm skiing this afternoon

Friday, January 10, 2014

It’s been snowing about an inch per hour the entire day, and at 1pm the Steamboat ski area reported 13” had fallen at mid and top in the last 24 hours. It was a bit windy on the hill, and with winds increasing during the afternoon, conditions evolved through the day. In general and as you might expect, any aspect sheltered by the wind skied better as the afternoon progressed, but the wind was even starting to get into the trees and create some drifting there.

An early run down Shadows skied well, especially the lower half, as did the left side of Lower Shadows. The wind was strong enough to buff Sundown liftline so that it skied very consistently, encouraging high speed and bouncy GS turns for a couple of runs. Even the gully just above Duster was skiing great as many (but not all!) of the rocks were covered. Rolex trees also skied very deep if you could find the untracked lines, and the Aspen near the bottom were sublime.

The lower mountain received similar amounts of snow, so that was skiing great too. A quick run down the middle of Concentration had tons of untracked turns. Vertigo is a smaller trail than Concentration and had less untracked snow, but the skiing was still soft and consistent.