Royal Mountain Conditions

[Jim]

We had a pretty nice one for opening day today. The sun made some appearances but not too many. Probably for the best since it was in the 40's. Practice Slope, Queen, and Royal, plus Lift Access and Lodge Run were well-covered with loose granular that became wet granular. It was a pretty good crowd considering the limited terrain. I only made 5 runs off the top, spending much of my day in a beginner instructor clinic in the morning and a personal skiing clinic with our ski school directors early afternoon. But that was plenty for me for a first day.

It was decided part way through the day today that with the weather forecast, Royal will not open tomorrow. The plan is to reopen next weekend as usual for Saturday and Sunday, then gear up for the Christmas-New Years week, open every day except Christmas from Dec 22-Jan 1.

 

[Jim]

Yesterday was a nice, sunny day, skiing on the same two main ways down (Queen and Royal). Queen stayed pretty firm but nice through the morning. Royal got a little more sun and was very soft. I only made 7 runs off the top. I taught our ski school's first lesson of the season early, got to make my runs up on Queen and Royal after that, then we had an instructor clinic until I had to be on my way home by 2.

I can't get up there today. I plan to be there for as many days as I can over the holiday week. The plan is for the mountain to be open every day from this Friday through New Year's Day, except for a half day on Christmas Eve and being closed for Christmas Day.

Depending on what happens with the rest of my schedule this week and how conditions look after this incoming storm moves out, I am hoping to get in at least part of a day somewhere else on Tuesday or Wednesday. I could do an Indy day if anything close enough looks worthwhile, but I'm guessing a Gore day would have the best chance of being decent.

 

[Jim]

Facebook post from Royal:

CLOSED TOMORROW 12/22/23
We currently have over 24’’ of base on all open terrain which includes the Bunny Slope (Learning Area), Royal, Queen, Lodge Run, and Lift Access. This week there have been a lot of great opportunities for snowmaking to help open additional terrain. Tonight, and tomorrow, we have extreme lows forecasted and are concentrating our snowmaking efforts on the Prince and the Board Park.
This season we have been working on a major overhaul project on the Kennedy Double chair lift (Old A Lift). We have installed a brand new control system on the lift to improve safety and monitoring of the lift. Today we received acceptance from the state on the new installation so the next step is load testing the chair prior to public loading. The state is free to complete this test tomorrow so we took this opportunity as it would have been after the holiday break if we did not.
The option to open the prince and board park for Saturday we will increase open terrain by 30% and by completing our final inspection on the Kennedy Double Lift we have the option to run this chair over break to keep lift lines shorter.
If you made it this far in the post, you deserve a beer in the Velcro!

 

[Jim]

Modern snowmaking and grooming are amazing things, especially when a lot of that snow is made with really cold temps like we had the last few nights. Royal was able to put out some pleasant conditions today with Prince, Queen, and Royal the main ways down. A terrain park was just starting to be built on what's now apparently named "Terrain Park" on the new trail map.

I only made 7 runs off the top before I ended up teaching a couple of lessons. The snow was really nice for teaching over on the bunny slope too.

Sounds like Knight down as far as the Lodge Run is going to be ready soon, and there was evidence of the beginnings of snowmaking on the Challenge.

Back tomorrow for a half day, closing time 1:00 for Christmas Eve.

 

[Jim]

Lucked out today. It was a light rain at my house, but a light snow at the mountain. There was only about a half inch of fresh snow on top of the groomed out machine made snow (which also, until today, had not gone through a thaw-freeze cycle), though enough to give us the best surface of the season so far. By about 11 it was warming up enough that the natural snow was mounding up in spots. The surfaces were still nice when I took my last run around noon. It never really rained at the mountain, but by the time we got to Johnstown, we were in a band of steady rain.

Royal is closed tomorrow for Christmas, planning to open the next 7 days after that. I am hoping Tuesday will end up being good before the next precip-that-must-not-be-named event comes in for Wednesday and Thursday. Doesn't look like there are any opportunities for snowmaking in that time to be able to open up the rest of the main trails.

 

[Jim]

Like I've seen from some other reports, my drive up through Johnstown was socked in with fog, but once I turned onto 10A, the fog lifted and the sun was out! The surface was firm to start but softened up quickly in the sun, giving a couple hours of really nice surfaces. We lost the sun by later morning, temps climbed a bit more, and even started to see a little drizzle around 2. By then the snow was heavy and fought back, especially on Royal. Also started to see a couple patches here and there looking pretty thin. Overall it was a good crowd for a day when it was foggy in the valley, probably changing some minds about whether it was worth going. The refurbished Kennedy Lift (formerly A chair) ran for the first time for much of the day, meaning ski right onto the lift for the most part.

Royal has decided to close for the rain tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be good to go again on Thursday. Looking at the latest forecasts, I am thinking it's more likely the mountain won't reopen until Friday.

 

[Jim]

Royal reopened today to more of the same. It drizzled about half the time as we skied on a wet granular surface. I was surprised they groomed out the trails given the warm and wet overnight. It worked well to produce pleasant conditions (other than the "getting wet" part). Skiers' right on Royal was left alone where some bumps have been building. A good place to work with my more advanced lesson this afternoon.

Not many people on the hill overall, but an almost shockingly large number of people came out for lessons.

In other news, I talked to Jake a bit about the work to get the Bunny Runner (carpet on the beginner slope) reinstalled into its permanent location. Work has resumed and he expects it will be back online for good soon. I hope it's ready before the big after school groups and weekend Trailblaisers programs get going right after the New Year.

For what it's worth, the snowmaking ponds are now both back at capacity. A marginal-at-best opportunity to use some of that could come for Saturday night.

 

[Jim]

I'm sure Royal wasn't the only mountain with frozen granular becoming loose granular today. If you didn't know before coming, you could hear it on arrival with the slushy turns of the last week now scratchy turns. At least it felt like winter out there. No new snowmaking yet, not sure if the plan is to do any tonight. Looks like it will be cold enough.

It was the busiest of the days I've been at Royal so far this season. No lines, though, with both main chairs running. The longest lines were at the snack bar.

 

[Jim]

I went up for a few hours today. Ski school was not busy so I was not needed to teach. The surfaces were lots of loose granular on Prince and Queen, with freshly made snow coming down on Royal when I went out late morning. After lunch, more snow guns were firing up, almost much top to bottom on all three main ways down that are open so far. I'd guess 15 or 16 were running by 2. The surfaces were quickly improving. Now it's just the after school programs on the bunny slope Wednesday and Thursday evenings until regular weekend operations start back up on Saturday.

 

[Jim]

I was mostly teaching today, but one was a student who was able to ski all over the mountain, so I ended up taking some runs on the main mountain. There was a lot of new snow made on all open terrain this week, for some great machine made packed powder surfaces. Only parts of Queen had some cookies when I was out there, and some parts of Royal were getting skied off when I went out for a couple end-of-day runs. It was easily the busiest day of the year so far. With both main lifts now apparently reliable to fire up as needed, there were no lines to speak of any time I was over that way.

Jake reported on Facebook tonight that they groomed the man-made base early and we will start with whatever falls tonight ungroomed on all of the main mountain trails.