I was at Silver on Saturday 12/29, when the winds hit. It was like gale force winds at the top of the gondola, but not an issue at all on Chair 2, though fog was an issue pretty much all day, and freezing fog on goggles made visibility a challenge. Taking the cat track around the top of Chair 2 to Skyway Ridge, the winds suddenly hit like a wall of wind, it was hard to move forward, much easier when dropping down into Centennial/Gold/ Prospector on Chair 4. Skied down to the bottom of Chair 4 once, no wind and perfect visibility, though the coverage was thin.
Quite dramatic for my first time at Silver. They apparently closed ticket sales around 11am due to wind concerns, Shamora didn’t ski at all and they gave her a voucher for another visit. I left early after skiing 3-4 hours. I wouldn’t mind returning.
Schweitzer on Sun 12/30 and Monday 12/31, nice bluebird day on Sunday with some fresh snow in the morning. Biggest crowds I have ever seen at Schweitzer, I heard they had 6100 people on the slopes, a record-setting day, but the longest lift line I was in was 5 minutes and the slopes were never crowded, until all the trails converge at the bottom of the front side. A little icy on the bottom of the Outback bowl. I did some twilight (night skiing) and as we were staying in a B and B above the village I was able to ski in and out (the hosts had a headlamp I could borrow to navigate).
Monday was a groomer-zoomer day. Perfect corduroy on White Lightning, Stiles and JR first thing in the morning, then 4 runs on Lakeview triple all before 10:30am. More fun on the Outback side after that, Australia was good, but Colburn School is still pretty irregular and needs some more snow so they can maybe groom it a couple times to set up for some normal bumps to form. Lines were much shorter than the previous day.
All in all a fun New Years trip.
