New Snow Reported by Resort - 20cm
New Snow Observed on Mountain ? approx. 20 cm (8 inches)
Surface Conditions ? Powder
Sky ? moderate / heavy snow
Temp ? near freezing at the base, upper 20s F at summit
Skiers ? Jay, Dave, Erica, James, Chris, Scott, Ben
Runs / Vertical Skied - 10 / 18,430’

 This was the big one.  One local told Erica that it was their biggest dump of the year.  Somehow that sounds sad when you’re talking about only eight inches, and I’m not sure I believe it.  In any case, it was certainly a day to be at the mountain.  Our friend Ben from Seattle had joined us by this time, and our group had grown to seven.  Crowds and lines had been a non-issue, but we were warned that a Saturday and a powder day would be a bit of a different story.  The lifts supposedly open at 9:00 A.M., but we went down early to get in the lineup in case there was one.  We arrived at the Silverlode lift at about 8:20 A.M. and the line was already up to around 150 people.  The locals were out in droves, and they had their big fat skis with them.  I had never felt that my midfats were skinny until that Saturday.  The tips of my skis at well over 100 mm were nothing compared to the hogs that these folks were sporting.  I saw one little fellow with a pair of Atomics that simply said "DEEP POWDER".  These little sticks, which couldn’t have been much more than 160 cm, looked like a couple of carving snowboards with ski bindings.  The Silverlode lift started loading and a cheer went up from the crowd.
After a long ride up the Silverlode / Motherlode combo, we stood atop Granite Peak with almost 3000 verts of fresh powder below us.  We immediately headed for the Paradise area and dove into the trees that were loaded with fresh powder.  Although it had snowed somewhat on each day of our trip, it was never really enough to fully convert the chowder back to powder.  This storm finally erased all the marks and covered everything with a fresh even blanket of white.  The turns were as expected.  Bottomless powder with nary a track to be found.  This lightness of the snow was still nothing to crow about (probably 8% H2O or so even at the summit), but let’s just say that’s splitting hairs anyway.  We charged down the Paradise area between trails and woods, barely stopping to regroup before diving into the next pitch.  It was tough to get folks to stop for some good video, but we knew the untracked wouldn’t last long with all the local powderhounds around.  After two runs, the place was pretty well tracked up, and the group had calmed down enough that we could get some nice video.  Video was tough though because it was still dumping like stink and light was low.  The best shots were close distance, but the new snow made it all worth it.
For our third run on Paradise we were lucky to meet up with a local fellow named Norm.  We had been eyeing the big snowfield behind the base of the Paradise lift.  This snowfield was on the lower portion of nearby Mt. Roberts, and provided about 300-400 vertical earned by a relatively easy 10 minute traverse into the woods beyond the ski area boundary.  The top of the snowfield started out at about 30-35 degrees for about the first 100 vertical, then gradually mellowed out.  There were about 10-15 tracks in the snowfield already, but plenty of untracked remained.  Those first turns on that snowfield were probably my favorites of the trip.  I got waist deep shots for about the first five turns as gravity tugged me downward toward the lift.  Oh weightlessness.  Visibility was still low, but Chris managed to get some shots of us with the camcorder as we approached the bottom.  The great thing was that there were still plenty of untracked lines all the way along the traverse, and they weren’t going anywhere.  We decided to save them for a later date and get some great shots of untracked runs in the wooded areas.
After three runs on Paradise, we headed over the backside of Ridge Run and dropped into the steeps that we were getting to know pretty well by this point.  Everything was all tracked up here but the snow was still great.  Dropping to the back side of the mountain from this angle gave a fairly long run with good pitch before hitting the Long Squaw traverse.  There was enough pitch to give some great runs in the woods off to the skier’s left.
This had to be one of the wettest ski days I’ve experienced that didn’t involve rain.  It snowed and snowed and snowed, and with temperatures in the upper 20s, even Gore-Tex was struggling to keep us dry.  Between sweat and the humidity in the air, we were walking sponges.  Constantly removing my gloves for camera work only helped to compound the problem as my wet hands were returned to my gloves.  I have to say that camcorder really earned its keep and held up under harsh conditions.  It has a moisture sensor that prevents use when things get too humid, but it never even got activated.  Keeping the lens free of moisture was a chore as well, but things came out nicely in the end.  We really had to hit the motel for lunch this time; everybody was just so wet.  I’m not sure what happened the rest of the day, but I recall that we did our best to clean up the remaining areas of untracked powder lines that we could find.

On to the pictures!