Royal Mountain Conditions

Powder and packed powder today, great day. It was pretty fluffy (by eastern standards) at least to noon, a little heavier later. I'd say short of a foot of snow but not by too much. Even some woods were in play, and I got some nice runs in the Maiden Glades (between Knight and Prince, below Princess) and Duke (skiers right off the top of Queen). People who are more willing to beat up their skis than I am were off trail in other places. Definitely not enough yet for me to go into the steeper woods. Ropes were treated by many as optional as the day went on. Not sure why patrol didn't just drop them at least on Knight and mark it as "thin cover" or something.

Hope the warmer system coming up doesn't do too much damage and we can have some great conditions again for the holiday weekend.
 
Crazy weather day and snow conditions to match. It started raining hard soon after I arrived so I stayed in the lodge until almost 10. The rain stopped so I went out for 4 runs, including my first runs on the season on Knight and Midnight, both open for the first time. Places where the overnight slush had fallen on top of the groomed surface was grabby in spots, otherwise it was wet man-made snow. Royal was actually really nice. That was it for the main mountain for me, as I was on the practice slope the rest of the day in lessons and skiing with our friends who are in from out of town. My 11:15 lesson started dry, then we had a downpour for maybe 15 minutes. That changed to wet snow. The rest of the day was off and on snow that didn't amount to much but did improve the surface a bit.

Most of our friends will be ready for the main mountain tomorrow so I will be spending more of my day up there.
 
Frozen granular became powder and packed powder when a few squalls dropped a quick 3 inches. Busiest day of the season so far, and probably the busiest ski school day we'll have all year. After the first squall I was able to pop into Princess Woods and Damsel Glades for the first time. There was almost enough snow to make them good.
 
Jake posted a long video on Facebook today. Some highlights:

- Operation "Drain the Ponds" started yesterday and will run until there's no more water in the ponds. Challenge, Captain Jack's, and the new Lower Red Carpet will definitely be open. He didn't mention Doc's Drop or the T-Bar line but seems like there will be plenty of snow to open those too. The plan is to make enough snow this week to be able to be open for all of Easter break, which is on the early side this year.
- All woods should be open this weekend with plenty of cover.
- He talked about why they cleared the trees between the chairlifts, and the primary concern was lift safety - keeping trees from falling on the cables. There's a 5-year plan to make use of that space which will be a new trail called Red Carpet. First is getting remaining stumps cut down and remaining brush burned. Longer-term is to get snowmaking in there and maybe down the road a winch cat to be able to groom it when needed. He said it's steeper for longer than the Challenge (I believe it) and the plan is to make it a true bump run.
 
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Operation Drain the Ponds worked. Lots of snow made all over the place, and the ponds are pretty much empty.

With the cold and a bunch of newly-made snow just pushed around and groomed out for today, things started out hard and fast. With traffic, it skied into a nice packed powder surface. A few trails were open for the first time. Challenge was nice and will improve. Doc's Drop, quickly became its usual hard pack self. Captain Jack's is always a favorite of mine but the cover was still kind of thin and there were places that chunks of ice left by the snow guns was falling onto the trail. Should be nicer tomorrow. And the new Lower Red Carpet trail, between the chairs below Lodge Run, was a really nice new option. Royal was closed for the Johnstown Invitational race until after 2:30 (featuring my daughter's first slalom races), so I never took it. All of the woods were listed on the ski report as "Open, Enter at Own Risk". I only went into low angle woods and they were all pretty good, including my first time into Jacksland this season.

It was busy, but it was mostly racers and spectators and kids in the Trailblaisers program in the morning. After the race awards ceremony there was almost no one around. I expect with more sun and a few more degrees tomorrow (and it not being race day) we'll have more of the usual crowd coming out. The same friends from Florida who we took to Maple last night plan (arm and shoulder are more sort today from that handle tow...) plan to join us at Royal tomorrow.
 
Nice and sunny afternoon visit today with our out-of-town guests. Cold with more breeze than you'd want but everything's wide open with packed powder on the trails, thin cover of powder/packed powder in the woods. I still avoided the steeper woods. It was the busiest non-race day yet judging by the parking lot. Late week forecast looks horrible. Glad I got to ski all this snow before it gets rained on.
 
Just the afternoon for me today. It was a rain/snow mix up falling beyond Johnstown but all snow by the time I got to the mountain. It hadn't amounted to much and even by closing there was maybe an inch of new, wet snow. Everything was heavy, and at times a little grabby near the bottom. My 8 runs from the top sandwiched a lesson on the beginner slope. Good news from there: the Bunny Runner finally got inspected, had snow pushed around it on both sides and it was running for this weekend. Now that it's in its permanent location, I hope it can be opened at the start of the season going forward.
 
The snow was fine but the best part of the day was the return of the sun after being nonexistent for so much of January. We started with a firm and fast groomed frozen granular, things softened in the sun and with skier traffic, then it was skied off pretty good on the steeper parts by late afternoon. Even though I taught two lessons, both were on the main mountain, giving me a chance to set a season high for runs from the top of Royal this season (22). Looking forward to another nice day tomorrow.
 
Start with what we had yesterday, remove those few clouds that floated by, make the snow much nicer all day (still frozen and loose granular but never got skied off), and you have today. Even Royal and Challenge were still skiing great when I quit after 3. A few glades were tempting enough that I tried them to give friends visiting Royal for the first time at least a little taste. Nicely skiable albeit on very thin cover.

It was the busiest day of skier traffic of the season so far, enough to have lines over a minute long at both lifts just before lunch time. Probably had to wait 20-25 chairs on Hadley once, making it easily my longest wait of the season. No more lines by 1.
 
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