Royal Mountain Conditions

[Jim]

Latest news is an 18" total from this lake effect event so far, and snow guns running as well. The mountain should be 100% open for the weekend.

 

[Harvey]

Might be a powder day

It's relatively busy and there's a surprising amount of available trees for skiing,
Awesome fun.

 

[Jim]

Sorry I missed you @Harvey. You picked a day with Royal at its best and I'm glad you enjoyed it. With a couple of lessons I got only 8 runs off the top but all were great, at least some woods on almost every run. I couldn't get out on the main mountain until almost noon so I missed all of the powder on the main trails but there was plenty to go around on the edges and in the woods when I finished up after 3.

It's possible today's crowd was the most people I've ever seen at Royal on a regular ski day. The lower parking area is almost never needed and to have it fill is pretty much unheard of. Race days are busy but a lot of those people are just watching. I didn't notice cars parked on Route 10 like they sometimes do for the snowmobile events.

I can't go up early tomorrow but hope to head up for an hour or two in the afternoon. Should still be excellent.

 

[Harvey]

We were first-ish and skied several untracked laps to start the day. Our first run down the lift line was off the charts.

There were pillows everywhere. The snow was bouncy. Reported 22" of snow fall was legit.

By the time it got busy (noon?) it reminded me of Plattekill, every chair full, tons of room on the trails and in the trees.

When we left there was still plenty of great woods skiing to be done.

A lot of really usable terrain for a small mountain. Royal is awesome.

 

[Jim]

I got back up for a couple hours at the end of the day today, glad I did. There was another 6"+ since yesterday and the snow was coming down pretty good. I focused my limited time on hitting areas I am only interested in skiing when there's good enough and deep enough snow, which are also places I knew I could find some deep fresh tracks even at 3:00 on Sunday. Best of the day were

• Dutchess, the very challenging (cliffs!) tree run between Prince and Queen
• Jester, the lower angle glade between the lifts and the lower half of Challenge
• the upper part of Wench, but not the main line but closer to Royal where you can really only go when it's deep

Looking at the forecast, it should all be intact and ready to enjoy again next weekend when the mountain reopens.

 

[Jim]

Another nice one today, and another good crowd. Everything was open with powder and packed powder. A good amount more snow was made on Red Carpet, which now has a wider groomed swath and is a lot deeper. Great fun on that one today. I only got into the woods a bit on Duke, which was also really nice. Like I said about Woods Valley yesterday, it's so nice when there's natural snow that hasn't been through a thaw-freeze. I hope to be able to ski more tomorrow afternoon when it's not my day to teach.

 

[Jim]

Forgot to wrap up the weekend when I got home yesterday. It was more of the same on Sunday, another big crowd but no lift lines to speak of, just lines at the snack bar. I still ended up doing some teaching since it was so busy at the ski school but did get to make 10 runs off the top. I got into some more woods and really enjoyed them. As far as the trails go, my only complaint was some chunky stuff at the bottom of Challenge and Royal where people were doing a lot of skidding to slow down. Mostly a really nice packed powder surface all day.

It's looking cold all week, now just hoping we can get the first two words out of the current Saturday forecast of "r*** and snow likely".

I hope to get going on my Indy Pass this week. I should be able to ski some at West before my daughter's race there on Wednesday evening, maybe I can manage a longer Indy Pass day somewhere on Friday. With Bousquet on the pass now I'd like to get out there for a few hours some time soon also.

 

[Jim]

Royal had 100% of terrain open again today. My only runs off the top were in my advanced lesson in the early part of the day and we had a lot of nice, freshly groomed packed powder. The rest of my day was teaching two groups of adult first-timers on the practice slope. Nice conditions for that, anyway. It was busy again - I can't recall this many days in a row with this many people.

 

[Jim]

More of the same for today. 100% open, lots of people no lift lines, packed powder on the trails, plenty of powder to be found in the trees. What a great run since New Years. I only got in 10 runs, with the best of the day being Glasgow glades (my first time this season up in there), Jester Glades, and the soft bumps on skiers right on Royal. The middles of the steeps were getting skied down to hard pack, still all edgeable, or just stay to the sides and enjoy.

I'm feeling like 6 or 7 of the 10 most full Royal parking lots I've ever seen have been this January.

Royal's open again tomorrow for the holiday, but I'll be at Gore for the HS ski races. Between the expected cold and what I've been reading here and hearing from so many people in the lift lines and lodge at Royal about the conditions at Gore this season, I don't plan to ski.

 

[Jim]

Our great run of 100% open with packed powder continued today. Probably about an inch of powder from some time during the week freshened things up just a bit. 2/3 of my time was teaching but still had time to check out the steeps and a lot of trees. My run of the day was in the trees between Challenge and the T-Bar line. It's probably been a couple years since I did that much of it. It was a busy day, though not like the huge crowds of the last few weekends. Back to a normal busy Royal day, enough space in the lodge, manageable lines at the snack bar (the broccoli and cheddar soup was really good). Hope to get back up tomorrow for a bit for a non-work day to spend some more time in the trees.