There was a flash turn out for the first few Trams this morning, but as the crowd got spread out, the Tram line disappeared  for the rest of the day.

FIRST LOOK

I took advantage of the Little Cloud chair to circumvent the Tram line, getting a couple very nice lines down Regulator, which had 4 to 5″ of very light density snow, that resisted clumping into the harbor chop for most of the day.  The Patrol was working snow safety in Mineral basin, and this shot of the Basin shows the view before the charges were dropped from the helicopter.  Huge sections of the snow pack released with the control efforts, which left large sections of the Basin covered in debris.  Mineral Basin is rumored to open first thing in the morning, but there is precious little left  for tomorrow’s opening.  Some of the low angle aspects missed the damage of the slide debris, but expect to have to look around for a clean line.  The high traffic of the past couple of days has begun to develop some serious interference patterns in the  popular lines, with the most serious traffic coming from the Peruvian Chair.  The available traverses have improved markedly with the new snow, making access a bit better, though still touchy on some of the exposed sections.  At least the rock and root situation is improving on those sections.  Gad 2 is getting worked over on all of the lines, building the chop again, so be careful with the snags that are beginning to get uncovered.  Tomorrow, look for the the Groomers to offer some velvet smoothness.  Anderson’s Hill got the Grooming nod for the first time of the season, making that line worth a look on first Tram.  There is still some crustiness here and there, but it does not present much of an issue to the direct line approach.   Be there for the early lines.   Ciao!!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 5:58 pm and is filed under Snow Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.