Yesterday at Saddleback was kind of beyond amazing for December 8. The term "snow pocket" doesn't really do justice to what we encountered.
The mountain apparently had a thin-ish but solid natural snow base going into last weekend. The Sunday - Monday storm clearly dropped a good 18" of snow in several waves, the earlier of which were enjoyed by skiers last Sunday.The mountain was CLOSED Monday - Thursday.
Yesterday morning I was, for various reasons, not properly prepared for a ski day, let alone a day of off-piste skiing. My carpool buddy arrived earlier than expected. Disorganized mentally and materially, I grabbed my daily drivers and race poles and called it good.
Even driving up the access road we were like, "Wow. There is a crap ton of snow up here." Parking lot was not busy. Lodge was not busy. A little weird, even for a weekday, given weather and conditions. No wind, blue sky, 20°.
It was upside down day at Saddleback. The main groomer boulevard, Gray Ghost, was closed due to whaling. Just about every other run on the mountain was open. About four of them were groomed. Everything else was just lightly tracked up dense unconsolidated snow - settled but not refrozen. Even Tightline, the signature but - IMHO - unremarkable upper mountain steep groomer was ungroomed. Again, weird.
So. We attempted to ski the hell out of the place and had a fabulous time doing it. Now, honestly, we all were flailing much of the time. Four old guys on 80mm skis, on their first day of the season (or almost, in my case), trying to ski through foot-deep eastern crud, is not something you want to make a move of! But it was hella fun.
Of course the light and my patience for picture taking were both low. It was the land of sun and - predominantly - shadow. In blue/black is my friend Larry, with some of the goods behind him. Yellow coat is Dave (not me) with red helmeted Bob in the background. Then the usual suspects at the summit, chewing the fat.
Gotta appreciate the memory because - you guessed it - the warm rain is on its way.
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