Pacific NW/AK/BC 2020/2021 PNW news, weather, conditions, stoke.

[Posaune]

OpenSnow is forecasting almost 40" for Baker over the next 10 days.

It's so funny to me that a place like Baker needs a 100" base for lots of it to be skiable. Given that it averages over 600" a year, that makes complete sense, but I'm coming from the East Coast, where lots of our groomed trails are often manicured to look like freshly cut lawns in the summer. Our groomers might only need 12" to be skiable. Perhaps our standards are different too. I skied Magic Mountain last year in December, and they had gotten only about 32" of snow, with maybe a 16" base, and they had many of the glades open. They were very clear in communicating that coverage was low, and skiing off-piste was at your own risk. I hit a lot of rocks that day, but that's the price you pay sometimes to ski fun terrain early in the season. The difference is that Baker gets almost 5x more snow that Magic in a typical season!

I'm excited for some of the mountains on Mount Hood to open up in the next week or so.

When I said 100" I didn't mean snowfall, I meant base. We need about 8 feet of snow on the ground to really get rid of most of the junk. The slopes here in the summer are full of small trees and bushes. After the first 100" more terrain keeps opening with more snowfall. 200" of base is pretty common later in the season.

 

[markojp]

When I said 100" I didn't mean snowfall, I meant base. We need about 8 feet of snow on the ground to really get rid of most of the junk. The slopes here in the summer are full of small trees and bushes. After the first 100" more terrain keeps opening with more snowfall. 200" of base is pretty common later in the season.

Exactly.

 

[Coomba]

Did Lookout Pass today for my 1st day

I was at Lookout on Friday, they only had the front open. Too crowded for such a short run, I left after five runs. The snow was good. I was skiing single and in seasons past this meant you could get on the chair pretty fast even with long lines, not so much in covid era. I'll be back when the whole hill is open and they get some more snow.

 

[gilligan]

Skied Crystal again today. Another nice day with sun in the AM but it was not anywhere like last Friday. Thaw-freeze cycle hit over the weekend and it was crusty with about 2-3 inches of new fluff on top which made it decent. Snow pack is thinning out and got bit by a few rocks in Green Valley. Top of Chair 6 was pretty bad. Had to pick my through the rocks all the the way to the Southback gate (which is open but I skipped, doesn't look too prime right now). C-6 was a one-and-done. Northway opened Saturday and I skied Northway Bowl. It was pretty nice but Ottobahn back to the chair was a rough ride on my early season legs. But can't complain, it's not even Thanksgiving! Heading up again tomorrow but bringing my rock skis unless the forecast is way off which is predicting no snow new snow.

 

[Tom Co.]

Yep, Crystal on Monday
Other than the big lineup on CHEX in the morning, the lines were just ski up, mill around, and then get on the lift. There was a nice lifty on REX kept reminding people to cover their noses, so cover up in the lift lines. Middle Ferks/Iceberg lived up to its name and was one and done for us. Lucky shot got scraped down to ice and piles. The coverage is still good for early season. There are a few more rocks cropping out, with one really bad bare spot on the left side of Lucky Shot where one of the roads joins in. We ended up eating lunch on a picnic table by the Campbell basin Lodge. It stayed cold, was sunny for about two hours, and was FUN.

 

[New2]

Mt. Spokane has updated their trail map this season with trail names for the new Northwood pod and new(?) lift names instead of numbers: https://www.mtspokane.com/trail-maps/
Just when I was finally getting to know the lift numbers, too!

 

[New2]

Snowhaven, in the Idaho panhandle, has announced that it will not be operating for the '20/'21 season ( SNOWHAVEN SKI & TUBING AREA WILL NOT BE... - Snowhaven Ski & Tubing Area | Facebook ). I hope they're back up and running next year once we have vaccine(s).

 

[Slasher]

did anyone ski WB today?

 

[slowrider]

Day1 Hoodoo opened for pass holders & employees. Beautiful weather.

I told myself just a warm up run or 2. Right. Knee depth new snow 1 st run. It was glorious.

The groomers were pleasant if your into to that. ;-)

2 hrs & my legs were toast. It was good to be a skier today.

 

[RJS]

Day1 Hoodoo opened for pass holders & employees. Beautiful weather.

I told myself just a warm up run or 2. Right. Knee depth new snow 1 st run. It was glorious.

The groomers were pleasant if your into to that. ;-)

2 hrs & my legs were toast. It was good to be a skier today.

That looks awesome! If Hoodoo is still doing the discounted Thursday ticket deal this season, I'm hoping to go a time or two to check it out.

 

[slowrider]

That looks awesome! If Hoodoo is still doing the discounted Thursday ticket deal this season, I'm hoping to go a time or two to check it out.

Thrifty Thursdays are still a go. Stop by.

 

[noncrazycanuck]

WB typical early conditions, maybe better than average, coverage is building rapidly for the alpine openings, Check on parking in advance if your driving up, a few changes.
But don't think anything north of the border really matters to the majority on this site this year.
A separate B.C. Alberta thread would be more useful.

did anyone ski WB today?

 

[Bad Bob]

49° North opened up yesterday. It needs more snow like everywhere else. Small crowd and people behaved themselves. The weather could not have been nicer. 3 chairs were open with okay coverage. I missed my Speed Bump........pic taken from the middle of the area looking NW

 

[David Chaus]

Crystal was beautiful today, for viewing Ranier at least. This was from the top of Green Valley. I skied on Thursday and again Sunday. Hard packed snow, and a bit crusty in the morning off piste, warming up with some sun. Northway was actually nice, but bony at the last slope, which accounts for there being no lift line there. Chair 6 similarly has no lines, but needed rock skis on top to get the traverse. Sadly I didn’t have rock skis, so I’ll be taking my Renouns in and tuned up a bit.

The lift lines were manageable, in a normal season there wouldn’t be much a wait, but this isn’t a normal year. This may be the last time I go up on a weekend or holiday.

 

[Tom Co.]

Crystal Mon. 11/30
There were no lift lines to speak of, just a few walk ups. The gondola was on wind hold all day. Six and Northway never opened. A lot was half empty waste of space. B lot was 2/3 full, C lot was 3/4 full. It looked like mostly overnighters D with a few in E. there were lots of shuttles running. The invisibility was challenging with varying degrees of snowing white out. It cleared a bit towards the afternoon. It was too windy to take a lunch break on the picnic tables at the Campbell Basin Lodge so we used the picnic tables at the base. It was a short break. The snow was a bit wind affected and heavy, with some pretty good stuff in spots. The depth very from 3 inches to 6 inches or so where you could find blow in. There was not a lot of grooming. Most of the upper mountain was not groomed. In spite of all this it was a halfway decent day. We had fun and we're glad we went. If you're into groomers, Downhill and Rolling Knowles were good for our warm up runs and our warm down runs. I think I only hit one rock all day. The visibility was poor for pictures but here's a couple.


The 12 table lunch area at the base



Forest Queen lift line about !:00

 

[pchewn]

Timberline Lodge had lots of new snow, moderately high winds, no crowds today. Here's the new Pucci lift (detachable quad) replacing the old Pucci lift (fixed triple).

 

[nunyabiz]

No pics, but Mt Hood Meadows had a decent crowd for opening day. The start of the morning was nice, the snow was pretty deep in spots considering it's early season. By about 1030 am it turned into full blown storm skiing and many of the lifts went on wind hold which resulted in longish lines at the lifts that were running. I called it a day a little before noon, I was tired already anyway. No matter how good of shape I'm in, the first day is always exhausting.

 

[pchewn]

No pics, but Mt Hood Meadows had a decent crowd for opening day. The start of the morning was nice, the snow was pretty deep in spots considering it's early season. By about 1030 am it turned into full blown storm skiing and many of the lifts went on wind hold which resulted in longish lines at the lifts that were running. I called it a day a little before noon, I was tired already anyway. No matter how good of shape I'm in, the first day is always exhausting.

I flipped a coin between Meadows opening day or Timberline. I'm glad I went to Timberline. They did run the lifts at slower than normal speed for the wind, and had occasional stops.

 

[Posaune]

Beautiful bluebird day at Baker with several new inches of nice snow. Pretty big crowd for a Tuesday, but neither Stevens or Snoqualmie are open, so I think we got a bit of their usual crowd since Crystal is the only other Puget Sound region ski area open.

It looked just like below, except I took this on another day.

 

[slowrider]

Grey bird day for Oregon skiers. The rest of the week looks like refreeze every night. Sharper your edges.