The 19/20 Copper State Conditions Thread.

  Thanks for answering my question RA . After making that post I went to the Snowbowl's website and checked out there trail map. I love mountains that have backcountry and sidecountry access from the top of lifts.It must be torture looking up at that bowl on days you can't ski it. Your condition thread has spiked my interest in skiing the Snowbowl , especially if you keep getting dumped on . For the last 4 years my stepson and I have done some pretty serious storm chasing out west. We wait until most of the ski areas on our passes have a majority of there terrain open and hit the road a few days before a major storm cycle is predicted. Every year we hit at least one area not on our passes. First 2 years we had Epic passes ,last two we had Ikon Passes, this year we have both because my home mtn. (Hunter) was bought out by Vail Resorts. I've been wanting to do a southern trip . Something like CB for at least 2-3 days , a day at Wolf Creek, then on to Taos . At that point Snowbowl might fit in on our way to Utah or California.

Nice!

If you’ve never been I’d throw in telluride, Durango and Silverton into that mix. If you can. The San Juans are very special imho.

Here’s an old article from 2006 I was interviewed for. There were several road trip ideas and one is of the east so I’ll post it up in here too. This was pre-mega Pass time :D

Man I really hate that sideways photo thing....

CB is awesome btw but it’s best to wait until they have enough snow to open up the north face stuff. It’s a great mountain for steeps but kind of falls short on anything else imo. It’s not very good low tide skiing and there aren’t any really good cruisers or mid level expert trees or whatever.

I’m headed over to Taos soon hopefully. I’ve never been but it’s apparently another super technical steep skiing mountain.

    I always forget about Silverton, thanks, Taos has been on my bucket list for ever. Good advice on CB it's pretty arid around there. I finally got back to CB in 2017 after spending the winter of 1973-74 out there. It was just after some huge storms. Was able to ski most of the north face terrain we skied back in 1974.We use to have to hike to that terrain now it's accessed via a T-bar. Some terrain past the north face was still closed for avie work . Looked like a big slide ripped thru the Banana Chutes. All that snow and my partner still managed to get a bad core shot to his board.

From the office this week in Caliente, Nevada.

Beautiful

I can play too

Ooooo! I want to feel that warmth right now. We just froze our asses off for seven days camping with night time lows from 10 to 20 degrees. Florida bass fishing sounds especially really nice after that.

Insanely busy weekend at the Bowl right now. The Agassiz chair caught fire today and patrol went into full evac mode at 2:30 shutting down all operations.



Coleman was there today, hopefully this seals the deal on a new lift for next season.

I was back in Caliente this past week to continue my mini-x training as well as do some trail Flagging and design. It was so much fun! I can honestly say that this is the first time in my life where I actually love the work I’m doing.







I haven’t really been fired up lately to go skiing. I think camping in the cold for work has me desiring warmer activities on my free time and it’s been a real shit winds sort of season. After every storm the alpine gets hammered by destructive winds making the ski touring not really worth the effort. That’s ok, I’m really stoked for different experiences and advancing my career and skills set. Is it weird that all I can think about right now is trail?  :D

It’s not crazy. Skiing has never been #1 on my list of things to do, it’s always been a fun winter activity but my work has always brought more long term satisfaction. Sounds like you have found something you truly enjoy and can earn enough to live on. But don’t burn yourself out on it. Congrats

Thanks Peetex, I appreciate that.

Fun mogul skiing today.

Wow, how long did the evacuation go?

Saratogahalfday wrote

Wow, how long did the evacuation go?

 
2 hours and 15 minutes for a fully packed chair and 230 people! Ski patrol crushed it!

Looked like ideal conditions to evac.  I dread the thought of doing an evac in the east.....sun going down, -10 wind chill, trying to hold ground on a late afternoon snowmaking surface......

D.B. Cooper wrote

Looked like ideal conditions to evac.  I dread the thought of doing an evac in the east.....sun going down, -10 wind chill, trying to hold ground on a late afternoon snowmaking surface......

I saw where Gore did a night time Gondi Evac practice about a month ago. They do train for these rare events. Could you imagine getting people out after dark over the cliffs?

raisingarizona wrote

Those bumps look primo.

They’re skiing really good right now. It’s chalky, cold, edgy packed powder perfection on those north facing runs.

The south faces were getting corned up yesterday too.

east or bust from the TGR forums.

D.B. Cooper wrote

Looked like ideal conditions to evac.  I dread the thought of doing an evac in the east.....sun going down, -10 wind chill, trying to hold ground on a late afternoon snowmaking surface......

It was. It was probably around 50 in the sun that day.

A really cold and windy day could become a very dangerous situation and quickly.

Copper yesterday, and A Basin today were amazing. Nice fluffy snow. Bluebird days. Fluffy bumps/troughs and chalky snow in the steeps. Perfect couple days.

Fresh snow tonight-tomorrow. Looking forward to it. Its days like yesterday and today I come out here for, and constantly think about moving out here.