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The 2013-2014 Ski Season Thread


Skivt2

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That looks like some prime spring skiing Radarman.  I miss going to Killington around this time of year.  When I first got my drivers license back in high school I used to drive up there almost every weekend in the spring...even if I had no one who could tag along, I was up there.  Killington's at its best in the springtime.

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That looks like some prime spring skiing Radarman.  I miss going to Killington around this time of year.  When I first got my drivers license back in high school I used to drive up there almost every weekend in the spring...even if I had no one who could tag along, I was up there.  Killington's at its best in the springtime.

 

Agreed.  As you know I prefer going a littler further north usually, but no complaints on a day like that and 45 minutes closer to me too.  Hoping to get two more days in before calling it a year.  One may well be at Stowe, it's easy to see the ridiculous amount of snow you still have. 

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Thinking about Killington next Friday. Think the snow will hold up ok?

 

Not everywhere, heck it's not holding up now in areas with direct sun, see my little excursion down Devil's Fiddle, but north and northeastern faces will be fine for a couple more weeks and at a place as big as Killington that should give plenty of options.  Superstar will be good for another month probably.

 

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Not everywhere, heck it's not holding up now in areas with direct sun, see my little excursion down Devil's Fiddle, but north and northeastern faces will be fine for a couple more weeks and at a place as big as Killington that should give plenty of options. Superstar will be good for another month probably.

20140410_kmart7.JPG

Nice. If the weather is good then I'll make the trip I guess.

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Not everywhere, heck it's not holding up now in areas with direct sun, see my little excursion down Devil's Fiddle, but north and northeastern faces will be fine for a couple more weeks and at a place as big as Killington that should give plenty of options.  Superstar will be good for another month probably.

 

attachicon.gif20140410_kmart7.JPG

 

Today I finally noticed the warmth is starting to eat away on the rocky ledges on natural snow trails... yesterday was warm and sunny, last night only got down to the mid-30s, and today was 50s and sun again.  Tomorrow is pushing 60F in the base area and 70F on Monday... I think I'll see a surprising amount of melt in the next 4 days before that cold snap middle of next week.  Especially seeing as Sunday night's lows are looking like they may stay in the 50s, even at elevation (may be colder in the valleys with a mid-slope warm belt)...its those warm night times that really accelerate snow melt.

 

Its funny how snow melt works...its like you can put up with a lot of warm days without noticing much change in anything, and then you'll just like hit that tipping point when the snow must ripen as much as it can...then it just starts disappearing.  I remember that in the March 2012 torch...we made it like the first 2-3 days with no problem and then on like the 3rd night into the 4th day, although temps were the same, the snow was melting like it was 20-30 degrees warmer. 

 

Either way, there's obviously enough snow for Stowe to get through Easter Sunday closing day, lol.  It'll just be interesting to watch the snow over the next few days.

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We have a few natural snow trails melting; Royal Flush, Devils fiddle. Northstar is getting thin in spots. Everywhere else is deep snow still. Even with the warmth this week the skiing should be great next Friday. The main reason trail counts are dropping is because base areas are closing due to not enough people. Rams head and Skyship are closed so those areas are done. Bear closes supposedly tomorrow. But there should be great skiing in the canyon and Needles next weekend. The K1 gondola will still be running and of course the superstar chair. Everything in the canyon and snowdon was awesome today. Did ovation 3 times today.

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Not everywhere, heck it's not holding up now in areas with direct sun, see my little excursion down Devil's Fiddle, but north and northeastern faces will be fine for a couple more weeks and at a place as big as Killington that should give plenty of options.  Superstar will be good for another month probably.

 

attachicon.gif20140410_kmart7.JPG

I could see the bare spots on the fiddle from Sunapee

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I was just looking at some spots out west...man rough year for the Sierra.  As we all know, but at the same time I sort of expected it to turn around at some point there.

 

Squaw Valley took their 6,200ft base area weather/snowfall/base off their snow report and now only report at 8,000ft, lol.  But looks like they only had 87" of snowfall this season at the base of the mountain, that's half of what we had at 1,500ft :lol:.  They have 265" at the 8,000ft level, which just goes to show how variable with elevation snowfall is out there.  Only 1,800 vertical feet and snowfall more than triples...so at their upper mountain spot they've had 5 more inches than I've recorded, but they have less snow depth than Mansfield's co-op right now.  Not often the Green Mountain summits are on par with 8,000ft around Lake Tahoe in mid-April...and Mammoth at 10,000ft has a 65" depth (only 205" this season!), so northern VT at 3,700ft is deeper than the Sierra summits, haha.

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I was just looking at some spots out west...man rough year for the Sierra.  As we all know, but at the same time I sort of expected it to turn around at some point there.

 

Squaw Valley took their 6,200ft base area weather/snowfall/base off their snow report and now only report at 8,000ft, lol.  But looks like they only had 87" of snowfall this season at the base of the mountain, that's half of what we had at 1,500ft :lol:.  They have 265" at the 8,000ft level, which just goes to show how variable with elevation snowfall is out there.  Only 1,800 vertical feet and snowfall more than triples...so at their upper mountain spot they've had 5 more inches than I've recorded, but they have less snow depth than Mansfield's co-op right now.  Not often the Green Mountain summits are on par with 8,000ft around Lake Tahoe in mid-April...and Mammoth at 10,000ft has a 65" depth (only 205" this season!), so northern VT at 3,700ft is deeper than the Sierra summits, haha.

 

 

I think it also shows how reliable the snow is out there too in a way....they have had about as crappy as a pattern as you can have most of the cold season and Mammoth mountain has 100% of the terrain open. Granted a place like Squaw is probably like 50%...but some of that is due to how they close portions of the mountain after a certain date even if the terrain is still skiable (obviously you know how that works).

 

That's a bizarre snow gradient between 6200 and 8000...that almost doesn't make any sense.

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Funny you mention Squaw. A friend of mine was there today and posted pics. There is no snow at the base except on the ski trails...

 

 

The base of Squaw is pretty low for out there. A lot of the good skiing done (at least when I skied there) is usually on the upper lifts....even when I was skiing there in March 1999 when the snow was obscenely deep, the base conditions at Squaw always got pretty mucky...Alpine Meadows was always much nicer at the base. They are more like 7k at base. I think Kirkwood is almsot 8k at their base.

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Sunday River had 3 new this morning. They are closing 4/21 but could have been full open,what a great last half of winter they had.

 

 

I couldn't believe the conditions there in late March when I went. Mid-winter conditions with 100% of the terrian open...and not just open, but almost perfect conditions with it open.

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I couldn't believe the conditions there in late March when I went. Mid-winter conditions with 100% of the terrian open...and not just open, but almost perfect conditions with it open.

March may have been one of the most consistently good snow conditions for a full calendar month that I can remember in a long time. It was packed powder or powder conditions every day...no rain to mess up the surface, just snowfall on top of snowfall on top of snowfall with cold enough temps in between that the surface didn't rot even in the strengthening March sun.

But I guess that's what you get when you have the snowiest March in 7 years plus the coldest March since records started in 1954 (Mansfield Co-Op) and 1948 (MPV) in this neck of the woods.

Truly an epic ski month.

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I skied Keystone during April school break in 1993....it was epic.

 

 

This is their time of the year out there. Pretty nice snow report today: http://www.keystoneresort.com/ski-and-snowboard/snow-report.aspx.....and the models show another good system moving throughn mid-week..prob will add another 8-15" there.

 

 

 

One of these years soon, I will get back west in April. Most of the places usually stay open through late April...but there's a few really good places that tend to close in early April unfortunately (like Telluride is one that I know) even though they have obscene snow depths.

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March may have been one of the most consistently good snow conditions for a full calendar month that I can remember in a long time. It was packed powder or powder conditions every day...no rain to mess up the surface, just snowfall on top of snowfall on top of snowfall with cold enough temps in between that the surface didn't rot even in the strengthening March sun.

But I guess that's what you get when you have the snowiest March in 7 years plus the coldest March since records started in 1954 (Mansfield Co-Op) and 1948 (MPV) in this neck of the woods.

Truly an epic ski month.

agreed.  its rare to get such a long stretch without some kind of taint.  It really was good from Valentines day through the first weekend in april.

  Im thinking winter 13-14 comes to a  close with a solid B, despite the awful stretch from xmas to valentines day.

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Wachusett officially called it a season. They had been talking about giving it a go this upcoming weekend...

 

We might have bought the last lift tix of the season yesterday. I could not get there until 2-ish and we paid $10 for about 10 runs in the slop...lol  It was actually really fun. some trails still had decent snow. Not sure how it would be on Friday. The summit was in rough shape since there is no place to stockpile snow up there.

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