Date: 02/25/98
Days: 1
Resort: Mt. Baldy
Hours: Day
Equipment: Alpine
Rating: 9
Primary-Surface: Packed powder
Secondary-Surfaces: Powder, Slush
Gender: Male
Age: 45
Ability: Expert
E-mail: crockeraf@aol.com
Loved: Coverage and surface, "once a decade" runs skiable now
Hated: Tracked out yesterday, lots of work to find any powder
Closed: Ch. 4 opened about 11:30AM
Liftline-Waits: 10 min. Thunder 10:30-3:00, 15 min. Ch. 4 first hour open
Moguls: Outstanding, freshly made with no hard snow

After Monday night's 3-4 foot dump, a difficult decision: a partial day of powder Tuesday, depending on when they get the lifts running, or a full day on what's left on Wednesday. Given the track record of Baldy's management, I chose Wednesday. However, on Tuesday they did get Ch. 1 open about 10AM and Thunder about 1PM and both areas got totally tracked out. South Bowl was the only exception: it might have been open a half hour or so Tuesday. It was a bit set up this morning but still good with my Chubbs or a snowboard (but the boarders definitely suffer on the traverse out of South Bowl). Ch. 4 was well baked by the sun when it finally opened and had to be skied carefully even with powder skis. After lunch you had to go out of bounds to find any untracked. By afternoon Thunder was skier packed with good moguls forming in the busy areas. Monday's storm was so intense that there was almost none of the wind-stripped hard snow which is usually common in Baldy's exposed areas. The only negative to conditions is that the creek under the lower chair formed during Sunday's rain. The run next to it is still well covered, just not as wide as last week. It was sunny all day, so Ch. 4 and the exposed parts of Ch. 1 will have spring conditions until the next new snow.