bigwavedave Posted February 27 Author Report Share Posted February 27 Tuesday 50° yesterday, stayed above freezing overnight, 40° and sunny at start today. Drove up for 1st tracks. A couple of runs with the 9sw testing stance and angles. 4Pipe was mostly crunchy, some icy and some soft slush-cone. Switched to the 175 Rev w/ F-plate and was able to carve everywhere. The sun started softening everything. JugglerJoe, DoubleJaw were great, SkyHooker was variable, like 4Pipe. Finished the day over in the BigAir park where the groom was el supremo... There are thin and bare spots appearing on the hill along with patches of tilled up dirt. The beginning of the end unless we get some snow. Rode for 2½ hours until the north winds and dark clouds started moving in. Temps are supposed to drop 4° tonight, and with luck, bring some snow. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted February 28 Author Report Share Posted February 28 Wed 2° , windy, sunny only a dusting of snow overnight I expected icy conditions, but went up to check it out anyway. What if it was perfect Minnesota firm and I missed it? The grooming looked excellent from the chair. The reality was crusty, frozen groom, lucky if your edge penetrated the surface and when it did, it only went in ½" to the bottom of the grooves of the corduroy. At least it was smooth, so sorta carvable. Went over to the BigAir park where the groom is always softer, but it was closed for grooming. Might be nice later when they're finished. 1 hour and done. I stopped to check out the new Ski Hut which opened Monday. Great location on the Munger bike trail and across from the ski hill. They will have bikes and skis for sale and rent, full tuning and repair shop plus everything else ski and bike related. There is a creamery opening a restaurant next door serving cheese, wood fired pizza and I guess ice cream? He reminded me that the XC national championships and Supertour finals will be here March 21-26, which means alpine access (parking) will be at the top of the hill. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted February 29 Report Share Posted February 29 We’re back from AU/NZ. Rode for an hour on 1” of dust-on-crust. Tomorrow may be softer with 50F 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 1 Report Share Posted March 1 First person on the chair today. 40F and perfect soft groom for about an hour. Things deteriorated quickly after 11 AM with 48F and lots of sticky spots. Went home and ran. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 1 Author Report Share Posted March 1 Thinking I'll be on the hill 1st thing tomorrow. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 2 Author Report Share Posted March 2 Saturday 35-40° and sunny Met up with Ken for the first ride up at opening. 1-2" of nicely groomed slush-cone snow over a slightly softened crunchy ice base. Fairly decent carving with DoubleJaw having the best conditions. There are thin and bare spots poking through here and there. It makes one wonder how many days we have left at Spirit. Word is that GR has been nice. Might try to get up there soon. Also, keeping an eye on Snowriver, as it's not uncommon for significant lake-effect snow in March. Plus, slush carving there is fun. Oooh, and can't forget Lutsen for some spring slush fun. Remember that Spirit has shortened spring hours after tomorrow--Closed Mon & Tues and first chair at 11am. 45 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 2 Author Report Share Posted March 2 Just bought my pass for next year. New age categories. Senior now starts at 80 yrs old. The "mountain message" says they are planning 7 days/ week next year! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 6 Author Report Share Posted March 6 Wed warm & windy 35° dim sun Started from the top at 10:45, 15 min before 11am opening. Ran into @khoward and @nelsonboat at the bottom of the Express. Rode all over the hill looking for carvable snow. It was a mix of softened ice, gravely-crunchy ice, slush and thin spots. You had to stay on your toes and keep a light foot on the accelerator. It was equal parts slarving and carving. They're poaching snow from some runs to fill in others. Scissorbill has been sacrificed to save 4Pipe . We found the best carvable snow on CinderSnapper and DoubleJaw. BindleStiff and JugglerJoe were okay. 4Pipe was variable with thin spots. BigAir was closed for grooming and still hadn't opened when we called it quits around 2:30. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 8 Author Report Share Posted March 8 Friday Sunny 32-35° Drove to the top of the BigAir Park and parked at the side entrance in the "B" lot. Made 1st tracks... Snow was nice for carving with 2-4" of granular spring snow over the ice base. Made about 10 runs through the park, riding the Gandy chair. Didn't go anywhere else. GandyDancer has scattered thin and bare spots as I suspect most other runs have, except for the BigAir park which has nice coverage. It's very close to the end. They could knock down all those jumps and keep that slope going for another month. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 8 Report Share Posted March 8 Rode for over an hour on 4Pipe, Double Jaw and Jugular Joe. Soft groom between icy patches, but not hard to find decent lines. Planning on 1st chair tomorrow. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 9 Author Report Share Posted March 9 Saturday 30-35° & sunny Back to the park for 1st tracks. US masters ski racing on BlueRuin and practice races on SchinderSchnapper. Everybody knows the best snow is in the park, although I was surprised how well Mt ops was able to fix most of the other runs, moving snow from here to there to cover bad spots. Still pretty icy and chunky most everywhere with areas of snow mixed with dirt, but not in the park. Ran into Ken over on the Express side. Saw a couple of softbooters doing the Knapton on 4Pipe. Rode for a couple of hours. Thirst XC. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 10 Author Report Share Posted March 10 Sunday Sunny 30-40° The river refroze overnight 25° Went up ½hr after opening waiting for temps to get above freezing. Parked by the park again. Rode for an hour in the there finding good carving snow top to bottom making 2-4" deep trenches. Feels good making smooth turns in nice groom. But, it gets old after several runs 'cause there's basically one carving lane through all the jumps and I mostly avoid the jumps. So, I went over to the Express side and found Ken there. Rode several different runs on the Express side. Rough ice and slush piles made carving difficult. Maybe it was better first thing, before the "surface" groom was all tracked out and scraped off. They've done a good job of moving snow around to cover the bare spots. Because of that, I'm a little hesitant to really commit to a carve in questionable areas. Several free-heelers on the hill today. A mini spring tele-fest. ...and the river is open again... P.S. Heading up to GR tomorrow. day 49 at Spirit plus 7 days between GR and Snowriver 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 12 Author Report Share Posted March 12 Tuesday Spirit wasn't planning to be open today, but it was 70° down by the river! It will take a miracle to squeeze more days out of the hill. As it is, I've already gotten more (small) scratches on the bases of my boards during this winter of marginal conditions than in the past 10 years. It looks more like the end of April! I'm thinking of going to Idaho next week. Schweitzer had 5' of snow over the past couple of weeks. A spring-fling pass for the rest of the season is $169. I need to remind myself what it's like to carve on snow sans a bone rattling ice base. I seem to remember it being a ton of fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 12 Report Share Posted March 12 Looks a bit dodgy under the lift, but hill operations knocked down the Tubing Park today. Maybe we'll be riding through there to bypass this. TBD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 13 Report Share Posted March 13 Didn't Look promising on the Webcam... Spirit Mountain. 1h · We will be closed tomorrow, Wednesday, March 13th. The record high temps the last few days have done a beating on what was already a weary hill. We may have lost this round, but we haven't given up all hope for the rest of the week. Our crew is still committed and fighting and will reassess the hill tomorrow to see what the possibilities for the rest of the week look like. Check back here tomorrow for more details. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 14 Report Share Posted March 14 It'll be interesting to see how hill operations can pull this together... Spirit Mountain 1h · This crazy warm weather did a number on the snow but the crew has been fighting the battle. We will stay closed tomorrow Thursday 3/14 to let the crew do some snow magic and then reopen for the season finale on Friday and Saturday and run from 10a-6p on both days! What exactly the terrain will look like is still to be determined but we will update here as we know more. We are for sure down some of our beginner-friendly terrain. The plan is still to hold SMASH on Saturday and celebrate another season even if it was the year winter didn't want to come. Thanks again to all of our wonderful supporters who play a huge part in making Spirit great. #SeeYouAtSpirit 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 (edited) First chair this morning at 10. All of the terrain south of Bindle Stiff was closed. Skyhooker was terrible with ice patches, but Bindle Stiff was fair. Did several runs down Cinder Snapper before it turned sticky. The final run back to Grand Ave down Bindle Stiff was awful. Left at 11. I’ll probably show up at some point tomorrow Edited March 15 by khoward Duplicate 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 15 Author Report Share Posted March 15 3 hours ago, khoward said: First chair this morning at 10. All of the terrain south of Bindle Stiff was closed. Skyhooker was terrible with ice patches, but Bindle Stiff was fair. Did several runs down Cinder Snapper before it turned sticky. The final run back to Grand Ave down Bindle Stiff was awful. Left at 11. I’ll probably show up at some point tomorrow An admirable effort of moving snow around to open up. GR has a lot more base. Probably the best conditions anywhere and it's likely they'll make it to the end of the month. I'm packing my car to drive to Schweitzer, Idaho. Likely you will get snow while I'm gone. It always happens when I go west looking for better snow. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 17 Report Share Posted March 17 Did one run today...bulletproof cord between sheets of brown St Louis river water ice. 4Pipe was a bit tired looking. Packing for Copper Mountain Packing for Copper Mountain 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yamifumi Posted March 17 Report Share Posted March 17 4 hours ago, khoward said: Did one run today...bulletproof cord between sheets of brown St Louis river water ice. 4Pipe was a bit tired looking. Packing for Copper Mountain Packing for Copper Mountain Let us know when you are heading to Copper. Some of us mostly ride Copper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted March 19 Report Share Posted March 19 We should be at Copper for USASA by the 28th or 29th. Usually ride the blue runs off of Eagle:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigwavedave Posted March 23 Author Report Share Posted March 23 Okay, wait a minute. 1-2 ft of snow in the forecast Sun-Tues? Is this what happens when we leave town? I made it back just in time. Spirit was making snow last night? Forgot they were hosting the XC Super Tour national championships today. Maybe if we get a foot or more it might be fun to hike and ride Spirit. Otherwise, GR, Snowriver and Lutsen are still going. Spirit 49 / GR 12 / JCS 5 / Lutsen 1 / Schweitzer 3 70 days 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khoward Posted April 13 Report Share Posted April 13 Ended our season with great riding at Copper Mountain. Back to running training on the road 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.