More great skiing in very cold temperatures
Sunday, December 8, 2013
A 4” mid-mountain report with 7” up top and snowing sounded promising on the 5am report, indeed by the 1pm report there were 9” at mid and 8” up top. The temperature at the Storm Peak Lab fell from 0F at the 5am report to -7F by 8:30am, so I prepared for another cold powder day.
While riding up the Gondola, I noticed Patrol had opened Upper Valley View for the first time this season, so took that as my first run. A bit tracked up top, but very deep bottomless turns near the sides. On the way back to the Gondola, I noticed that the Bashor chair was running for the first time this season, so I did a couple of laps in the untracked in Bashor Bowl. Again, deep powder, but the pitch was just not steep enough to make many linked turns.
Back up the Gondola and up Storm Peak to check out Shadows, and I was very surprised to measure 11-15” of snow in the favored locations. I’ve not been in Shadows for a couple of days as I was skiing the newly opened terrain around Rolex, so not sure how much of that fell overnight. But really good powder, especially the lower half of Upper Shadows down to the Duster cat track.
