I was asked in the Weather thread how the conditions at Timberline held up. I thought I would start a new thread rather than clutter up the weather thread.
Timberline came through the ice and rain very, very well. Kudos must be give to Tom Blanzy and the rest of the Mountain Operation staff for getting the mountain in such great shape after the nasty weather.
The conditions today were hard, packed powder and they slopes were a craver's dream. On some of the western facing slopes, there were little icy bits on the surface (hard to explain - not crud exactly, but more like the bits that fly when you make a rooster tail frozen on the ground). These didn't cause any problems though as you could carve right through them.
They had the following trails closed for snowmaking:
Lower Almost Heaven
Lower Thunderstruck
Salamander
Bear Claw was also closed because, I'm assuming, there was no way to get to it.
They were also making snow on the top of White Lightening, Woods Hole and Cross Roads (the main drag). They stopped making snow when it warmed up (around 1:00).
I stuck to the groomers except to check out the glades for JohnL. All of the groomers were in great shape except for Good Intentions, which in my estimation shouldn't have been open. It was marked with a 'thin cover' sign, but that wasn't the problem. When I skied it early in the week, it didn't look like it had ever been groomed and for some reason there were ridges running across the slope (think speed bumps). Because of the beginners who take this trail, it bumped up very strangely between the speed bumps and then it all froze. Everyone I saw on it fell at least once (yours truly included
)
While I'm not really a tree skier, I did sneak into Pearly Glades to check the snow for John. They are in good shape too. The commonly taken line was packed but had no bare spots. Off the beaten track, powder from the guns lay pretty thick.
Other observations: Upper Thunder Draft looked like it was in great shape. Earlier in the week, it was starting to get pretty thin, but it looked like the base had recovered nicely. Also the whales blocking the cut-though at the bottom of Upper Thunder Struck (to the skier's right below the pump house) had been groomed, so that was an option if you wanted to avoid the run out at the bottom.
I think that's about it. I don't do whales, so I didn't look at OTW or The Drop. I did ski the whales on Lower Dew Drop a couple of times to see if I could figure them out on a more gentle slope (I couldn't).
Again, I don't think enough credit can be given to the mountain operations staff at Timberline for the conditions of the slopes today. After a storm that could have taken several days to recover from, they had the mountain in great shape the very next day.
