Last day of skiing?

[porter]

Heart Lake in the Stateline Mountains on Saturday.

[pagamony]

outstanding!

John - Where was that at Crystal? How's the coverage - looks great up top in the pic, and at this blog I like to check a few times a season ... http://www.blogcrystal.com/

Porter - where's the lake ???

[johnmelton]

Originally Posted by pagamony

outstanding!

John - Where was that at Crystal? How's the coverage - looks great up top in the pic, and at this blog I like to check a few times a season ... http://www.blogcrystal.com/

The run was Bear Pits on Silver Queen mountain. It only had about two to three feet of base because it's so steep a lot of snow slides off. There are huge areas that have several feet of coverage, but you need to know which parts of the mountain hold snow better than others, especially on a powder day, because the area does have a lot of rocks and ridges that don't have enough snow. You can ski to within a couple hundred yards of the base area, then you have to walk, most people take the gondola down at the end of the day.

[porter]

Originally Posted by pagamony

outstanding!

Porter - where's the lake ???

Sorry. I overgeneralized. The lake is down there somewhere. Eight feet of ice and snow atop it keeps out the riffraff on canoes with fly lines.

[pagamony]

Originally Posted by johnmelton

The run was Bear Pits on Silver Queen mountain. It only had about two to three feet of base because it's so steep a lot of snow slides off. There are huge areas that have several feet of coverage, but you need to know which parts of the mountain hold snow better than others, especially on a powder day, because the area does have a lot of rocks and ridges that don't have enough snow. You can ski to within a couple hundred yards of the base area, then you have to walk, most people take the gondola down at the end of the day.

oh yeah. according to my sketchy memory, that is a steep area. i'm kind of surprised that was open since that forest queen access area seems to melt pretty fast, they must have gotten tons of snow this spring. Could you get all the way to the peak of powder bowl?

[johnmelton]

Originally Posted by pagamony

oh yeah. according to my sketchy memory, that is a steep area. i'm kind of surprised that was open since that forest queen access area seems to melt pretty fast, they must have gotten tons of snow this spring. Could you get all the way to the peak of powder bowl?

High Campbell and Forest Queen lifts were closed. so you would have to hike. Powder Bowl had snow on it but no tracks so I don't think it was open.

[porter]

Mission Mountains.

[skiing rules]

That which you are about to ski looks awesome! God I would do a lot of questionable things to have access to that.

[pagamony]

it does look awesome. since this is the midpoint of the year, does the next post from porter become the first day of skiing the new season? does it matter when the snow falls?

[porter]

Ah, deep thinking on summer skiing. My take is no. This is still 2011-2012 snow, not yet 2012-2013 snow. I think you need that break in August and September to begin the new season.

[pagamony]

what if you are skiing on a glacier? What about when the fist one inch falls above a rain line within your skiing line? These are not easy questions.

[davidski]

I guess this could have been my last day, but I just wasn't feeling that first turn

[pagamony]

david, I recognize that place. its occoneechee mountain, just south of Hillsborough. didn't realize the glacier had melted so much...

[davidski]

^^Exactly

believe it or don't, I really wanted to ski Ocaneechee this year -- on a short hike I saw it has decent consistent slope and almost no scrub between widely spaced trees --it would have been fun a couple of times in winter 10-11, alas we all no the story of last year

[porter]

A great day above Cliff Lake, if you could stand the exposure.