Today was a fantastic bluebird pow day, possibly one of the best days of the season.
Report by James Yim.
Palisades got 19 inches of snow from the last storm at 8000 feet, and there was a significant amount of terrain that was not open during the storm. Headwall, Siberia, Granite Chief, and Silverado were all untouched as of this morning. The Slot was my main objective for today, but the top of Headwall was in a cloud all morning. Headwall also started the day off on an operational hold, so I decided to lap Siberia until Headwall opened. To my surprise, Reverse Traverse was open right away, so after one lap of an untouched Siberia, we took the Reverse Traverse to get to The Slot.
The Slot had amazing, dry snow, but we could barely see on our first lap. The cloud was thick at the top, but the turns were still dreamy. We decided to make our way back down to KT, where we knew there was good snow and good visibility. East Face delivered with some bright morning sunlight and soft, powdery now. This is one of my favorite early morning runs when the sun is out. The Olympic Lady zone under the chair was also holding some amazing snow, and we could have lapped that all morning.
Once we saw the clouds lift from Headwall, we decided to head back that way. These were some of my favorite laps of the day. I found myself back at The Slot, with way more tracks and perfect visibility. The Slot, Headwall Face, Hogsback, and North Bowl were all skiing like a dream; cold, wintery snow with great visibility.
We then saw some people skiing The Funnel, so we headed over to the Emigrant chair to get in on the action. The snow was just as good!
Big shout out to the mountain ops teams for opening this terrain today. I saw quite a few nice lines coming out of The Palisades and Mainline pocket, but I did not find a need to walk uphill with how good the skiing was directly from the chair.
I’m excited to have some good weather this week with all the terrain offerings we now have to play with.
