The day started out with the Tram down due to high winds and the ZOOM Chair delayed, so I made a bee line to the Forklift Chair to wait out the variations.   MMMM Good!!!  The Tram opened at 10:30 AM with decreasing wind and rising temps.  The groomers were edgy and smooth with the off trail still holding that variable breakage.  Light traffic made back to back Trams a nice feature.  This is my favorite time of year, with great skiing and very light traffic.  As I mentioned yesterday, the smoothness of the snow pack is a special feature that needs to be appreciated.  The Peruvian side of the hill opened at 12:30 PM, with nearly no one waiting at the rope drop, blessing those who were in attendance with the gift of  taking the line of choice with Zero pressure.  How rare is that?   The terrain on that side of the hill has the gut sections filled with very dense pack that offered some very breakable footing.  I was in full smooze turn mode to average the variations and avoid a trip over the handle bars.   Any abrupt loading was going to send you through the crust, which could be problematic with the early season snow pack.  Some of the open slope reefs have blown clean in several areas leaving points to be considered as we get more snow.   For the most part the coverage looks good to go.   I was scoping out Wilbre Bowl from the chair to assess the coverage, finding that the lines are generally  very tight with rock bands on both sides and the willows still profuse with the low snow.    If the Cirque Traverse opens tomorrow use extreme caution dropping in to any of the lines to either side.  Breakable conditions will still be prevalent on most exposures, though you may find some better granular textures in the trees that were spared the wind.  The coverage on the lower Peruvian side has improved significantly since I last skied it last week, but open areas on those lower steep sections still mask some KNAR to be sure, so look out!!  More wind is in the forecast with, perhaps, some expanded openings to the lines we have been dreaming about.  This is Good!!!   Ciao!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 18th, 2010 at 5:11 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.