april 17th conditions

[frashdog]

So, from the bottom to about mid, whats left is like 6-8" of mash potatoes. Still a bit soft never really froze up. Now mid on up froze up. I'll bet the crust from the rain is about 3-4". Sitting on no more than 10-12". Now last night did bring maybe 3" of nice cold stuff to. So the story is NO Powder. Just dust on crust, and what a crust. Not so much a ice crust , more like a styrofoam crust, still can get a bite.

We get a day over freezing, it will be soo nice. Might have been 25ish at the summit. I skin/climbed up the slides. Climbed up the left side of the bottom waterfalls of slide 1 and due to the poor viz I almost made it to the summit, was not planning on it, a breif clearing in the sky showed me where I was. All the times I've skied down the slides I never was able to grasp how steep the bottom was till I climbed it (with snow), lots of exposure :D There are so many skiable lines with very few rocks showing on the slides due to the last storm. Ended up skiing down slide 3, due to the poor viz (50-100feet)I needed to see trees while I skied to help keep the vertigo away. The slides are epic right now and probably will be this weekend :D

[Jack the Ripper]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully the slides will be open this saturday.

[tjf67]

Nice job frog man. I drove in the parking lot around 4 yesterday and saw a few guys packing up there gear. Was that you?

On a side note the parking lot up top in under a foot of snow.

[sleestak]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully the slides will be open this saturday.

i didnt like the sign on top of summit quad saying on sunday saying "slides are now closed, better luck next year" makes me think they arent going to open them this weekend.

[frashdog]

There were two other vehicles when I got there 9am. Parked right next to NYSSEF. A snowshoe/boarder and skier.(never saw them on the mountain) When I got down at 1pm both vehicles were gone. Yea, they were plowing out all day. Seemed like there was no power there. All the gondolas were still on the cable.

Really the coverage on the slides is beyond what I have seen all year, then some better than most years. That wet snow stuck to everything, then the rain settled it. I have to imagine either the wind was not bad during the storm or the snow did not move once it feel, due to the nice even coverage.

Of course I will not be shocked if they do not open them, but can't imagine why they wouldn't open them especially with 50degree plus temps predicted!!

[frashdog]

I put a couple pics in the gallery. The viz got way bad once up on the slides.

Skiing down on the ski trails solo was kind of weird. All mine? Made me imagine there was a mass human die off, and guess where I was :lol:

[Phineas]

that be cool!

awesome on the effort! I hope they keep them closed on Friday - once they open them it gets skied off way too fast. hoping for a couple of poacher runs on Friday