Freezing in SLT

President’s Day weekend, and the slopes were packed. I had decided to go with a friend from L.A. who had never been skiing or boarding before, so a lot of the time was spent outside the ski circus. In the end, I had a ton of fun, although the conditions were only average.

The snow was decent, with some four inches falling between Friday and Saturday. Sunday saw a few flurries, but nothing that amounted to what the other resorts had seen. Mt. Rose surprised us with over a foot of fresh snow! Oddly enough, the Nevada side had much better conditions. The top of Galaxy had some serious powder cover, and I had a great time sailing through it.

The good side of the poor snow was that a lot of people had deserted Heavenly and gone to the North Shore. Northstar must have been drowned, just as Mt. Rose or Squaw. We had a good time – nothing of the 45 minute wait of last year, and even when there were lines, they usually were only at one of two lifts (e.g. at Sky Express, but not at Canyon Express).

We left on Monday around 12, which meant I had to leave the mountain around 11:20. Sad, sad, sad, for Monday was a gorgeous day for boarding. The sun was shining, but it was still in the teens (the whole weekend was colder than usual) and the snow wouldn’t budge.

Highlights:

• I am jumping better and better, and my straight shoots are getting faster and faster
• They converted the Tamarack terrain park to a cross-country park, probably inspired by the success of Torino – great!
• The snow in California was icy and ugly. Nevada had much better snow
• The blackout dates Sat and Sun attracted a lot of first-timers (or dissuaded a lot of regulars). As a result, it was slow crawling on all runs
• When it’s cold, the snow bunnies are bundled up – spring skiing is much prettier!