Well, Whitewater closed early this year. In fact, they close early every year, IMHO, but I realize most of the skiers are passholders, so there's not much new revenue. It's the same thing that causes most areas to close mid-April.
Anyway, closing day was April 2.
Somehow, WH2O decided to celebrate closing day with 50cm (20 inches) of fresh powder! That made for an awesome closing day.
I actually wasn't feeling well, but how could I pass that up?
The first problem was getting there. Whitewater's access road is notoriously troublesome when powder dumps occur, and yesterday was even worse than usual. I left early to try to beat what I knew would be a gong show on the road, but the gong show started early, with some idiot stopping traffic at every rise in the road because he/she didn't have the correct equipment for a snow-covered mountain road - but, by God, they were determined to go skiing no matter what! The people stuck behind this genius had to stop, get out, and push the car up every hill. The problem was compounded by the road maintenance contractor, who started late and only had one lane clear, with no gravel or sand spread.
Fortunately, I was so early that I still made it to the lodge before they started loading the lifts, and found an excellent, close in parking space.
The skiing was incredible, of course. The Catch Basin skiway and associated runs were all closed because of avy hazard. Although they did some blasting to mitigate risk to some other areas, they made no attempt to open the route to Catch Basin. There were numerous small slides across the cat track and in the bowl even before they started blasting.
There was plenty of terrain open, and relatively few people because of the road conditions. No lift lines to speak of, except at the Glory Chair. A lot of people stopped down there because they couldn't make it to the lodge parking area.
With a little wind, filled in depressions, etc., there was plenty of waist deep skiing and there were face shots every run. Knee Deep Glade utterly failed to live up to its name because it was waist deep in many places. Low angle tree lines were initially not much fun for whoever tried them, because they weren't steep enough.
Pillows were everywhere, and you didn't care what was on the other side because you knew it was going to be soft. Arcing with the skis buried deep, bouncing, floating off the bumps, it was all good and all memorable. One of my companions pointed out that people commonly pay $500-$700 per day for cat skiing and end up with conditions not as good as what we were skiing in.
I have a few pictures, but they're not very good. I was more interested in just skiing. Sorry.
I had to leave at 1:30 because I was so tired I could hardly stand up. My skiing had deteriorated to incompetence. A friend of mine leaving the lodge for home pointed to himself and said, "Industrial waste."
'Twas an incredible closing day.
Anyway, closing day was April 2.
Somehow, WH2O decided to celebrate closing day with 50cm (20 inches) of fresh powder! That made for an awesome closing day.
I actually wasn't feeling well, but how could I pass that up?
The first problem was getting there. Whitewater's access road is notoriously troublesome when powder dumps occur, and yesterday was even worse than usual. I left early to try to beat what I knew would be a gong show on the road, but the gong show started early, with some idiot stopping traffic at every rise in the road because he/she didn't have the correct equipment for a snow-covered mountain road - but, by God, they were determined to go skiing no matter what! The people stuck behind this genius had to stop, get out, and push the car up every hill. The problem was compounded by the road maintenance contractor, who started late and only had one lane clear, with no gravel or sand spread.
Fortunately, I was so early that I still made it to the lodge before they started loading the lifts, and found an excellent, close in parking space.
The skiing was incredible, of course. The Catch Basin skiway and associated runs were all closed because of avy hazard. Although they did some blasting to mitigate risk to some other areas, they made no attempt to open the route to Catch Basin. There were numerous small slides across the cat track and in the bowl even before they started blasting.
There was plenty of terrain open, and relatively few people because of the road conditions. No lift lines to speak of, except at the Glory Chair. A lot of people stopped down there because they couldn't make it to the lodge parking area.
With a little wind, filled in depressions, etc., there was plenty of waist deep skiing and there were face shots every run. Knee Deep Glade utterly failed to live up to its name because it was waist deep in many places. Low angle tree lines were initially not much fun for whoever tried them, because they weren't steep enough.
Pillows were everywhere, and you didn't care what was on the other side because you knew it was going to be soft. Arcing with the skis buried deep, bouncing, floating off the bumps, it was all good and all memorable. One of my companions pointed out that people commonly pay $500-$700 per day for cat skiing and end up with conditions not as good as what we were skiing in.
I have a few pictures, but they're not very good. I was more interested in just skiing. Sorry.
I had to leave at 1:30 because I was so tired I could hardly stand up. My skiing had deteriorated to incompetence. A friend of mine leaving the lodge for home pointed to himself and said, "Industrial waste."
'Twas an incredible closing day.
