A Heavenly Day
Conditions at Heavenly were, well, Heavenly. Cold temperatures and a solid refresh led to great skiing across most of the mountain.
The mountain as always has its personality. Gunbarrel, as we discovered early, sitting lower down was more like ankle-deep dust on a hard crust. Still great skiing, just deceptive from first glance.
Gunbarrel: fun, and a bit deceptive
Further up at Sky, conditions were great. We occasionally felt the hard crust underneath but much less frequently than at Gunbarrel. We noted a ton of skiers heading to Powderbowl Woods, which we can only assume was fantastic.
Sky: powder day classic as usual
The top of the mountain was shrouded in a low visibility cloud, so we skipped Pinnacles. A fellow skier reported fantastic untracked snow early on. Zig when others zag, I suppose.
Mott featured great snow but heavily skied within 1 hour of opening despite being a weekday. The slopes by Pinenuts felt noticeably more like dust on crust than the more northerly-facing aspects. The wind in the canyon was calm, and the break from the cold was welcome.
Canyon, with a beautiful Desolation Wilderness backdrop
Dipper and comet as expected were well tracked out, but snow quality was stellar, again similar to most of the upper mountain.
Tamarack Woods might have been the highlight of the day. It seems like barely anyone had been through there. If we had more time, I would've lapped this; it would've been worth the long journey back.
We finished with Pinnacles, Powderbowl Woods, and East Bowl, all of which were well tracked but had great snow (can you tell the theme of the day?).
Powderbowl Woods, and some snowmaking by Groove
Looking down the barrel
Pyramid Peak on a beautiful day
Overall a great day of skiing at a great resort.