Looks like Sunday 12/26/10 was the December peak conditions at the Springs. The wonderful packed powder is now all frozen granular. Monday the 27th wind storm started the conversion and the two day warm spell finished the job. On Sunday you needed your ice carving skills for the first time this season. Anyone have any idea why SS is not blowing new snow?

They seem to be blowing when temps are right over on Alpine to build out the stunt ditch and terrain jumps.
I also don't beleive they rent out additional compressors any more due to cost, having a reduced overall amount of capacity. Besides the week of money (after xmas - which had good coverage) is over so I'm sure ROI is in play. On the bright side the hard pack might provide for a refrig effect going forward.
Hopefully the weather cooperates and they get more coverage in place for the weekend (man made and natural). Not that conditions ever listen to what I want! ;-)

I was at 7 Springs yesterday, their base is almost non existent on North Face in places. With all the intense snowmaking on Alpine Meadows for the Supper Pipe and jumps, they are letting the other slope maintenance go. HAS anyone with brains at 7 Springs considered building a Super pipe out of EARTHEN MOUNDS?, it would take a 1/3 less snow making. Also Has anyone ever considered using ground cannons to make snow over there in the park where the snow is more concentrated in one place, seems to me there is allot of waste going on by pushing snow from the overhead guns on Lost Boy down Alpine slope.

I bitch at Snowshoe sometime for not opening a slope sooner, but Snowshoe does do a much better job at building a base.

Thats my rant for the day!.

Nice rant mang, I skied there the 19th and the 26th and was impressed/suprised by how thin the base was then, it's gotta really suk now.

I agree, I have seen seven (yes seven) Cats working simultaneously on Alpine since Christmas Eve! I would like to have half the money they have spent on Cat fuel alone. With that much energy and manpower they could have a 3 or 4 foot base on every slope. We are suppose to get 2 to 4 inches through Friday night and then lake effect through Sunday, so I am heading down tonight to see what the conditions look like.

Ok I guess I am going to have to take back all the bad things I said about the Springs snowmaking (or lack thereof). I skied last night to great conditions. Nice carvable firm base with about 2 inches of fresh dry powder on top. The base is very thin in places (like NF), thinner than I have ever seen for January. It appears they are gambling (without a license!!!) on there not being any more warm spells coming?
Other good news we picked up about 4 inches on the Ridge overnight with maybe another 2 to 4 on the way. And the best news of all- Baron announce today the #@^% super pipe is open today, so maybe they will get back to snowmaking on the trails.

I called Marcus around 8:00 so we got a late start. We finally hit the mountain like the tourist do; arrived at 10:30 AM. It looked like maybe 4 to 5 inches had fallen. First few warm up runs on the backside were OK but we took an early break to warm from the morning cold. Afterward we aggressively pursued the lee sides, tree lines, lift lines and snow gun lines skiers right of the Giant Steps Triple where we found yards of untracked and lightly tracked boot top fluff. The tone was set. We then moved to the shorter North Pole Quad and found chopped and tracked, dense to denser snow. By far the most untracked was found in the truncated Alpine Meadow Glades. The lower patch benefited from snowmaking for the Super Pipe. It also held the most natural by far. Adolph and Helen knew what they were doing when Seven Springs Farm introduced skiing to the region back in the 1930s. Eve by our last run at 5:00PM we managed to find 10 to 15 yard swaths of untraced in the sparse trees to skiers far left of Alpine Meadows.

All in all a very good day. As we left the mountain the snow which begun in the afternoon continued to fall. Weekend warriors should be in their prime today

Well stated comment about Adolph and Helen. Those two are legends in my book. The conditions at the Springs are getting better and better each day. We skied Friday night with packed powder with about 2 to 3 inches of fluff with light winds. Saturday we arrived at 8:00 and had first tracks on all the Gunnar lift trails with about 6 to 8 inches of powder on all but Yodler which was groomed. Once those trails were tracked we skied the Steps lift line and the Little North Face line until we declared enough about 2:00 due to low visibility from blowing snow. I skied my K2 Xplorers for the first time and was very impressed with how they handled the soft fluff (the hard groomers on Yodler was another story). Sunday was a tad cold and windy, but first tracks on Gunnar were impressive with about 4 to 6 inches of fluff on packed powder. The soft fluff from Saturday and setup a bit, so the ungrommed trails and tracks were totally different than Saturday. Sunday I skied on Blizzard 81's and was glad I did after the first run down the Steps lift line. Looks like we will pick up another foot from Tuesday through Thursday with cold being the norm so more fluff skiing to come!

The conditions at the Springs are very very deep. I am heading down tonight after being bombarded by calls from the slopes yesterday and spending all last evening clearing my driveway. The Ridge has received close to 20 inches of fluff and it is still snowing. Don't forget to bring your wide boards.

We were able to survive the Springs crowds on Saturday and Sunday but only by getting first chair on Gunnar and then moving on as the crowds built. The conditions were very good on Saturday all nice soft bumps. By Sunday most of the bumps that weren't groomed were a bit crusty.
By lunch time on both days my analogy was that "It was like tree skiing only all the trees were moving!"