Mike and I went back up today to Baldy determined to finally ski the Great Baldy chute before Alta opens and the chute closes... We left PC at a comfortable 8:30 and were on the trail at 9:30 and up on top at 11:40. General conditions were excellent with, at least today, a minuscule avy risk if that. I don’t know if it is because the weather reports showed cloudy, cold and potentially stormy conditions but early on there was practically no one there. Only a party of two got to the chute before us so we still had phenomenal conditions; a few inches (maybe six) of cold smoke over hard crust (beats hard rocks…). In any case once on top this thing was even more inviting than usual. We got our helmets on (you are surrounded by granite in there) and went down cautiously at first but soon realized that these were playground conditions! To the left; yours truly, to the right: Mike himself. As a bonus we then got to ski the Ballroom that was in a beautiful condition.
It really feels like winter up there although there is probably not too much good skiing available on the Sugarloaf side of the mountain. Because Alta has been making snow down the Collins run, that is right now the only functional ski out option.
Being first at the Collins top for lunch, we got to squat the sunnyside terrace of the ski patrol, including bench and all. Below please admire Mike, its-a-dirty-job-but-someone-got-to-do-it, Florence:
No comments:
Post a Comment