A Rookie Bootpacking Extravaganza!!
— Posted by Mark on December 12, 2008
So as promised we celebrated the end of 2 weeks of rookie training by taking the class of 08-09 up to the McConkey's area for an afternoon of "snow stabilization." In other words, we all rode in our snow cat to the top and side-stepped down the starting zones, crushing the crusts and mixing up the facets. This should help the new snow (you did see Krista's post with the storm warning) bond to the old surface which in turn should help us open this terrain as soon as possible.
Now I have to be honest and say we did do a little skiing on the lower half of the main McConkey's and over on Sunrise Bowl. After all the hard work of trudging down the upper half, the crew deserved a little fun. Of course I also have to honest and say the skiing was far from great; a mix of crusts and thin cover made for challenging conditions. Colin and I are pleased to say everyone made it out safe, learned about our snow safety program, AND had some fun. As "they" say, a bad day of patrolling is better than a good day.....well you know the cliche.
That is what we do as patrollers; get out there when conditions are less than best in order to see that things are as safe and enjoyable as possible when we do open up and you do get there.
now that it is snowing, how about a prognosis of when the rest of the mountain will open? What about the first halfpipe of the 2008-2009 season? I'd love to hear your realistic, on the spot, opinions.
Eric replies:
Hi Chapel, we've already done a push out of the initial pipe, still needs a good chunk of snow still. As I just posted, we are looking to open more terrain mid-week, but I know that the ops guys are wanting to see what the next day or two brings before we make any formal announcement. We want to get as much open as we can, we just need to see what is safely rideable first.
— Posted by Chapel Hillian on December 14, 2008 11:08 AM MST
Hi. I was wondering if you knew what runs would open on Sunday. Or, what runs will probably open on Monday. We'll be getting there Sunday night to ski this coming week.
Eric replies:
Hi Steve, sorry for the delay in responding, but I think that Mark is up on the mountain working.
Looks we should have some additional terrain openings sometime mid-week. We'll post as soon as we know details.
— Posted by Steve R. on December 13, 2008 6:30 PM MST