East Wall

Good start to the storm, 4" new this morning.

Obviously, the East Wall is starting to look pretty good. With  4" of new snow today and more in the forecast the next few days, the outlook is bright. You will continue to see lots of patrol activity out there with ski cutting and explosives in North Pole and The Tree Chutes and avalauncher use high in the middle portion of the Wall. So, my official East Wall opening date statement has changed from "I don't know" to "Fairly soon." Stay tuned, I am feeling pretty good about this.

A Lull Before The Next One

Today is another beautiful day for skiing at The Basin. I had a great morning wandering around this cool place. The snow is excellent everywhere. The sun has been popping out off and on. There was a wedding on the BML deck. All the forecasts agree that this next storm should treat us nicely, especially THE EAST WALL !!!!  Life is good.

Kids Center Open House

It looks like the Kids Center will open to the public Tuesday or Wednesday. We have received our Certificate of Occupancy from the County Building Department. Right now we are getting moved in and getting all of the systems operating. The kitchen is being put together and the finishing touches are being placed on the Kids Menu. The sign in, point of sales and DIN rental computers are getting hooked up. It is all very close to being ready.

This weekend we will host a few "Open Houses" encouraging people to come in and take a look. Stop by and visit Saturday from 12:30 - 1:30, 3:00 - 4:00 or Sunday from noon - 2:00. I think you will like what you see.

Good Skiing All Around

I had a fantastic ski tour all around the mountain this morning. These ongoing storms have been very kind to us. Everywhere I skied was really good. The Spine, of course, was fantastic. Lenawee Parks and Norway were superb. The Lower Mountain Groomers could not be better. The East side of Montezuma Bowl was creamy. Even Southeast facing Max was pretty darn good, a little crunchy in the choke of the chute, but excellent above and below that spot.

We have had several avalanche work crews out on the East Wall today. Over the next several days we are going to be talking about the East Wall A LOT !!!!

Counting Animal Tracks

Last week I spent a morning wandering the very lowest part of the proposed Beavers expansion. I was with three Forest Service employees. Throughout the winter they have been conducting regular monitoring missions to determine just what kind of and how many animals are down that way. We saw plenty of tracks including those of snowshoe hare, marten, weasel, squirrels and more.

Kachina Lift Is Open

The new Kachina Lift at Taos is now open. This will be a wonderful addition to the already fantastic Taos experience. Skiing off Kachina Peak is something you will never forget. I encourage you A-Basin pass-holders to head on down that way and enjoy your 3 days at Taos. I will be heading there soon.

Reading Snow Reports

There are people out there that look at the daily snow reports for all areas and go to the area that reports the most snow. Sometimes you get great skiing when you do that. Sometimes you miss so much. There is a fine art to reading and understanding the snow and weather reports. The most is not always the best. Enjoy these Dave Camara photos from yesterday when we reported 2" new.

Elephant's Trunk

Well, we didn't quite get as much snow as some of the other guys did, but the skiing is still excellent. Our total with this storm is 8" with another wave coming in Wednesday and Thursday. Elephant's Trunk opened up and, as the pictures show, it was in fine shape