The 2022 - 2023 Ski Season Thread

[CT Rain]

Just now, powderfreak said:

Yeah need a natural snow storm to fix it usually.  Grooming and some random snowmaking help but it’s not like everything can be resurfaced.  It becomes tough with snowmaking too if expansion or resurfacing and how to allocate those resources.  Sometimes holiday week is just making sure as much as possible is open instead of snowmaking again on already open terrain.

Sucks to not even have a nice upslope event after the rain. 

[Torch Tiger]

On 12/17/2022 at 8:59 PM, CT Rain said:

Mt Snow was exceptional today. Powder stashes all day. One of the better days I’ve had there- even hit the trees off Olympic on the North Face a few times. Guessing about 2ft fresh there.

Sounds great, but I noticed Ripcord is closed.  

[MarkO]

Saturday was excellent at Waterville. 2+ feet of moderately dense snow. Loon was fantastic today. Take advantage of the great conditions because come Satuday expect surfaces to become bullet proof. 

[bwt3650]

Yeah pretty ugly setup for Christmas week. Doubt i'll be able to salvage even decent conditions at Stowe a week later when I'm there for New Years.

Gfs at day 7 had an east coast blizzard everyone was ready to call historic and two days later it’s showing 50 and rain; yet at day 12 some are sure there won’t be any upslope to fix it? Not saying it looks great, but isn’t 12 days an eternity? Though I saw a decent clipper around the 29th on a few runs.


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[CT Rain]

1 hour ago, bwt3650 said:

Gfs at day 7 had an east coast blizzard everyone was ready to call historic and two days later it’s showing 50 and rain; yet at day 12 some are sure there won’t be any upslope to fix it? Not saying it looks great, but isn’t 12 days an eternity? Though I saw a decent clipper around the 29th on a few runs.


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Pattern doesn't look great.

[GCWarrior]

Was up at Jay Peak for the last 4 days.  Conditions improved rapidly from Thursday to Sunday.  Trees and natural snow trails were almost in.  It didn’t deter people from skiing them though.  I tired a couple spots and found there to still be some stumps and rocks.  Overall a great time.  Sad the rain is coming, hopefully the new year can bring a big storm.

[bwt3650]

Pattern doesn't look great.

Completely agree; and you know better than me. But this past week was a great example of “we don’t know sh!t” past 5 days. 3 inches of surprise upslope on a clipper could do wonders.


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[bwt3650]

Went ikon this year as I have some trips planned to sun valley and squaw, so for a quick day trip when I’m in jersey, windam replaces hunter for me. It was my first time there yesterday and to me, it blows hunter away. The mountain itself (trails, trees etc) just have a cooler vibe to me. Reminded me more of Vermont skiing. Hunter base seems run down in comparison. There were some trails on the far west side that were natural, and a ridiculous hike to get to, but outstanding. I’ve heard hunter has the better terrain and steeps, but I don’t really see it. The front trails on the west side of windam had some pitch and the east side, though closed, looked pretty cool. I’m guessing they have nothing as steep as westward, purna and lower k, but honestly, westway and purna have been open a total of about 5 days in 5 years and lower k isn’t much higher. Hunter seems like the same 5 trails down the front, where windam seemed to have slightly more character. Could it just be that’s it’s new and just had 20”; sure. (though 2 weekend days in the Catskills is an eternity for trails). But it definitely exceeded my expectations and I have no issues hitting up windam this year, instead of hunter.




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[Lava Rock]

Looking pretty wintery up at Saddleback today

[MRVexpat]

41 minutes ago, Lava Rock said:

Looking pretty wintery up at Saddleback today

I'll be up there in about a week. Really hoping for the net gainer that the euro is showing. 

[LaGrangewx]

I had some incredible early season conditions in Aspen this weekend. 

Really rough to pick a favorite.

Ajax has some awesome glades. And I got a delicious $35 hamburger at the outdoor bar. 

Highlands has some awesome steeps and powder skiing. Tons of vert. I didn’t hike the bowl this time around but definitely next time. 
 

Snowmass is just huge and I didn’t even get to explore it much. Skied about a half day. There is something for everyone here. They were blasting the cirque all day so it must be opening up soon. 
 

All in all my first weekend of skiing out here was fantastic. I didn’t have a single lift line on a Saturday with some deep powder conditions. It blew my mind.

[powderfreak]

On 12/19/2022 at 7:04 PM, MarkO said:

Saturday was excellent at Waterville. 2+ feet of moderately dense snow. Loon was fantastic today. Take advantage of the great conditions because come Satuday expect surfaces to become bullet proof. 

Must be fun with that new lift at Waterville.  The new lift replaced the main HSQ right?  I was impressed with Waterville last season on an industry Demo day there last year.  Fast lift to good vertical and some fun pitches.  Bet that place is fun with the dump.

[CT Rain]

Maybe disaster averted for NNE? Looks like some snow on the front and back end and dew points struggle past 45F. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

No disaster , this isn’t some mega dew torch thankfully , I’m not fully sold on the extent of front end snows but quick hitting driving rains then hopefully some resurfacing , especially in VT  

[MarkO]

8 hours ago, powderfreak said:

Must be fun with that new lift at Waterville.  The new lift replaced the main HSQ right?  I was impressed with Waterville last season on an industry Demo day there last year.  Fast lift to good vertical and some fun pitches.  Bet that place is fun with the dump.

if/when they iron out the kinks with that lift, you'll rarely see that lift being more than a 2 minute wait. Doing some quick math, 10k'/hr may be doable, not that you'd ever see me doing that.

It does look like the mountains may end up with a net zero after Friday's event. Euro suggests it may even be a gainer. Just not sure how much damage 2" of a 40F rain will do. 

[radarman]

Berkshire East has been closed and blowing snow for 3 days after being in very good shape already on Sunday.    Magic also reopening at 100%.  Get it tomorrow folks.

[GCWarrior]

Berkshire East has indeed been blowing everyday this week.  This rain storm is a bummer as the skiing despite being hard is really good. Not many rocks or stumps to contend with. 
 

They will fire the guns back up as soon after they clean up any damage and hopefully they can open Saturday. Friday I would think is doubtful. As long as snowmaking weather can continue into the holiday week they should offer a decent variety of terrain off the summit. 

[bwt3650]

Stratton was out f’n standing today. Bluebird, Soft natural bumps everywhere, lots of glades in play and even some fresh lines in the right spots. They really held onto last weekends snow well. Temps in the 20s. Almost the whole mountain open. Anyone that can get out tomorrow, I highly recommend it before the storm Friday.







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[LongBeachSurfFreak]

9 hours ago, bwt3650 said:

Stratton was out f’n standing today. Bluebird, Soft natural bumps everywhere, lots of glades in play and even some fresh lines in the right spots. They really held onto last weekends snow well. Temps in the 20s. Almost the whole mountain open. Anyone that can get out tomorrow, I highly recommend it before the storm Friday.







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They really under call their snow amounts too. Reporting 24” for the big storm, maybe at the base but mid mountain up was definitely over 30”. Then another 5” from a lake streamer Monday didn’t hurt. I’ll be up all next week, praying for as little damage as possible but the trees will be glacial no matter what and out of play until we get another natural snow. Planning on doing a Vt tour with a sugarbush and Kill day. 

[CT Rain]

Probably not going to lose much pack up north but rapid temp drop is going to turn it to a glacier.

Maybe a bit better end of the week as temperatures warm a bit and the snow softens some?

[Baroclinic Zone]

237" @ Alta 

[radarman]

19 hours ago, GCWarrior said:

Berkshire East has indeed been blowing everyday this week.  This rain storm is a bummer as the skiing despite being hard is really good. Not many rocks or stumps to contend with. 
 

They will fire the guns back up as soon after they clean up any damage and hopefully they can open Saturday. Friday I would think is doubtful. As long as snowmaking weather can continue into the holiday week they should offer a decent variety of terrain off the summit. 

was a bit of a disappointment today.  They blew huge whales but didn't spread em out, and actually lost open terrain from Sunday even after 3 days closed for snowmaking.  With that said, we got into the woods in SNE before Christmas, and that is certainly no guarantee in any given year.  So +1 there.

[GCWarrior]

2 hours ago, radarman said:

was a bit of a disappointment today.  They blew huge whales but didn't spread em out, and actually lost open terrain from Sunday even after 3 days closed for snowmaking.  With that said, we got into the woods in SNE before Christmas, and that is certainly no guarantee in any given year.  So +1 there.

They blew whales to allow the rain to run off.  
Hard to get into the woods at beast before Christmas.  2007 and 2008.  2013 I believe had a nice storm mid month I remember skiing in the woods.  2014 had a big one up north not sure about Berkshire east.  2019 and 2020 smoked by cutters.  

[Professional Lurker]

They blew whales to allow the rain to run off.  
Hard to get into the woods at beast before Christmas.  2007 and 2008.  2013 I believe had a nice storm mid month I remember skiing in the woods.  2010 had a big one up north not sure about Berkshire east.  2019 and 2020 smoked by cutters.  

Yup. They've known just as long as we have that this upcoming storm is gonna suck, so why ruin it all. No doubt they'll push the piles out, track them up, then groom then out. It'll be hard and fast, but they'll come out ahead.

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

[MarkO]

I'm wondering how conditions will be moving forward? It looks like the larger mountains got between 2 and 5 inches before the flip, ending up with more or less a neutral event, but I'm wondering (maybe Scott can answer best), if this rain can somehow drain, the groomers maybe sit on it (most ski areas closed today) and maybe an inch refresher, will it be bullet proof, or end up with more of just a firm base, but hold an edge kind of conditions?

[CT Rain]

How'd the resorts make out?

[Skivt2]

8 hours ago, MarkO said:

I'm wondering how conditions will be moving forward? It looks like the larger mountains got between 2 and 5 inches before the flip, ending up with more or less a neutral event, but I'm wondering (maybe Scott can answer best), if this rain can somehow drain, the groomers maybe sit on it (most ski areas closed today) and maybe an inch refresher, will it be bullet proof, or end up with more of just a firm base, but hold an edge kind of conditions?

The real difference will be that now there will be an icy base as is typical for NE.  Before the rain was a magical time because the majority of trails opened on the natural 2+ Foot snowfall with nothing underneath ie no snowmaking or hardened snow pack.  The heavy wet snow easily survived the deluge and it seemed to me like a net gainer based on the house here that sits at about 1500’ in central VT.  The good news is that we received squalls of heavy wet snow as the freeze started.  I’d say at least 2”.  If that can bond to the bottom layer then that will help the bottom layer to avoid the “pond ice” in many spots.  We shall see.  Fingers crossed.  An all out rain storm with no snow on the front and back would have been much worse.  Of course ultimately it did ruin a good thing though. No sugar coating that.

[bwt3650]

It’s snowing hard at 1900’ and there’s at least 3” new down. If this keeps up all night, this might fix a lot. Problem will be wind blowing it everywhere. Looks like some decent upslope Monday and maybe lake enhancement mid week. This doesn’t look like the disaster originally though or like past grinches. No doubt, sucks losing what we had last week, but I think it could have been much worse ski trail wise.


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[bwt3650]

Ropes dropping on some mid mountain glades today..a Christmas miracle. Happy for all those people who spend a ton of money to ski this week it is going to turn out decent up here. Let’s see how much snow those nw winds bring the next few days.


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[bch2014]

I’ve been in Lech/Zurs/St Anton for the last four days. Conditions haven’t been great. Rain/snow line has covered around 2000M and the snowpack below about 1400M is obliterated (St. Anton town has essentially no snow-Lech and Zurs a bit better). Anyway, snow levels dropped last night and delivered about 25cm above 1500M. Off-piste Skiing at the higher elevations where there is about 80-100Cm of base is quite good. Huge relief as the first few days weren’t great (scenery and atmosphere were great, the skiing not so much). 
 

And yes-I was in the same spot as the Zurs avalanche that buried ten people about 30 minutes before. Extremely lucky.