The past two days at Tamarack couldn't be more different. It was a sunny and warm spring day on Tuesday, March 11. Off-piste was soft enough on the lower mountain after lunch. Today was an empty Wednesday with snow coming down essentially all day. It was a good thing that Bill and I had a chance to explore Tamarack fairly well before this morning. The visibility wasn't too bad, but temps on the lower mountain started around freezing and went up a bit as the day went on so that the snow was heavy. Skiing to the base required extra effort. The fun skiing was off the Summit lift, but it opened late and wasn't running by 3:00. It had maintenance issues yesterday (we sat on it for a short period), so taking a last run from the top didn't happen.
Views from the top of Summit lift, March 11
The building with the ski patrol office also had a nice deck and a couple of waterless restrooms.
The trail across the ridge apparently used to be blue, but has been made into a green. There is only one short steeper pitch so had there been another warm spring day, I probably would've taken the Boston intermediate up to the top for the view.
The backcountry gate makes it clear that riding up the Wildwood lift after skiing down is relatively straightforward.
Today was the first day of this trip with snow in the forecast. Only expecting a few inches. By the time I did a last run around 3:00, there was 5-6 inches of snow on the upper mountain. The last section near the base was very heavy snow. I had to walk the last flat section in front of the Village buildings. We are staying in a 2BR condo in one of them. Very different from yesterday.
Drizzle at the base, 8:30am, March 12
Heading up the base lift called Tamarack, 10:00am, I didn't bother to use my powder skis
The mid-mountain lodge open for this season. It was a shell of a building for over a decade. The locals and early adopter homeowners are very happy to have it finally finished. A Mountain Ambassador told us that the nickname used to be the "Someday Lodge" because it was taking so long to finish construction. The exterior was done a long time before the septic and water system was approved and built. Nice to have indoor restrooms, complete with the option of taking the elevator to go downstairs.
The food selection is pretty good. My favorite is the ramen bowl, which is larger than usual at a ski resort.
Tamarack has a couple of transportation lifts that run from 9:00-2:00. One is a poma that goes over a bridge and ends very close to the beginner area. The other is a slow chairlift that has two green trails. One is an actual trail. The other is a narrow cat track that goes in between houses.
The Master Plan has more beginner/intermediate lifts and terrain on the other side of the poma.
Rock Creek poma
The Grove is over off the Wildwood lift. It's a reasonably large area with big trees that aren't too close together. Having learned to be comfortable on Taos blacks, I found the pitch was similar, if not a little less steep. We went in the two warm afternoons just to try to figure out the layout. The first day I cut out early while Bill finished on a cat track that is midway down. He was following a couple who seemed to know where they were going. Yesterday no one else was around. We opted to keep going down to the ski boundary cat track. I could see just enough faint tracks from before the warm spell.
Midway cat track, groomer called Tamarack is on the other side of the dense trees and a little gully
