I just returned from a day visit to Timberline. All trails to the right of the rightmost ski lift were closed. The snow on those trails was not deep enough.

I saw a lot of snow machines working, clouding the sky with white soot. 'Soot' I said because the weather was so cold that the blown ice particles sticked to my clothing and goggles.

Some ice patches on the middle of upper lightning. No ice on the drop.

The one thing that ticked me off was the early closing hour (4:30pm) of all trails more interesting than the greens. I bought an all-day ticket hoping to ski until night, but ended up going home way sooner than I wanted.

Wishing for a better condition next week.
---

My biggest wish for timberline in how best to immediately make improvements and increase revenues... light all the slopes for night skiing till 9-10pm. Of all the upgrades they can do, cut more trails, new lifts, etc. Adding lights would seem to be the cheapest and least labor intensive and bring the most bang for the buck.

...or even take the smaller first step of replacing the bulbs that are burned out. Nothing tests your balance like suddenly plunging into darkness.

Clay

True. Nothing says WV with heat lamp sheild-like devices bolted onto a tree with a burned out bulb. I did upper Dew Drop a couple years ago at night and where the fall line really drops, there was a burned out bulb there. The way the current lighting and shadows were hitting it, it gave me a momentary panic that I had to huck a cliff becuse it looked like a 10' cliff drop. Now doing that on ice, talk about scary.

Second run that evening, me and the guys sat on our behinds and butt-slid a good 200 yards down off of it because it was a solid sheet of ice.

Update on the snowmaking.... the skinny has it that all resources will be to open twister next. For me, this is a mistake, but evidently those folks in those Mcmansions have more pull with the good doc than I. It takes 45 guns a week to open it, then, when it gets warm, they lose it first. Sometimes I just wonder...

I thought thats what it might be. I had the pleasure of taking my first lift ride Sunday morning with Girlboarder247 and we noticed that the guns were starting to sneak towards Twister. Oh well. I agree that they could probably get more bang somewhere else, but what the heck, getting anything else open is a plus.

It should be cold enough for the next two weeks to make a good bit of snow. The long range forecast only shows 4 days where it will get warm enough for them to have to take a break.

Clay