xlr8r
Active member
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2009
- Messages
- 947
- Points
- 43
So here goes my crazy journey on where to ski solo this weekend. I was planning on skiing Stratton on Sunday on my pass and using Saturday to go to either Magic or Pico on one of my two remaining SkiVT tickets. I figured Stratton would be more crowded on Saturday so it would be best to go somewhere else and ski Stratton on Sunday. I decided on Pico over fears of crowds at Magic with only 1 chair running and not knowing if Magic would accept the SkiVT ticket as Magic considers this weekend a Holiday Weekend. But then looking at the weather it looked like it was going to be windy still on Saturday, and seeing the Pico snow report had the Summit chair on wind hold all day Friday, I decided to switch the days around and go to Stratton on Saturday and Pico Sunday.
I arrived at the Sunbowl just after 9:30 to a traffic jam trying to get into the parking lot, already a bad sign. After booting up at the car I went into the lodge to use the restroom, to find really long lines for both the guest services desk and rentals, and the information TV showed the Gondola, Shooting Star, and Snowbowl lifts all on wind hold, more bad signs. The line for the Sunrise was really bad so I did two runs off the Solstice quad to kill time hoping the winds would diminish. Then I went towards URSA to see how bad its line was and it was outrageously long, skied past to the main base to see a mess of people trying to board the South American and Amex lifts. I now realized this was not worth my time, these were the longest lines I have seen in a decade.
So I went back to the Sunbowl base to my car to check to see how other areas were doing on my phone. I first saw that Pico did indeed have the Summit Express open, so now I was kicking myself mentally. Then I checked Bromley's site and saw that they had all lifts open. That was good enough for me, 20 minutes later just before noon I was in turning in one of my SkiVT tickets at Bromley, ready to try again.
Luckily even though the parking lot was near capacity, the line for the Sun Mountain Express was not long at all, never more than 2 or 3 minutes the rest of the day. Conditions were really awesome soft snow everywhere, almost no ice or scratchy snow. The two glades I went in had excellent coverage, even tried the moguls, which were very forgiving, under the Blue Ribbon quad. It started snowing very hard at 2pm which made the last hour or so awesome as it was hero carving with almost 2 inches and bad visibility. Bromley definitely salvaged the day, and seems like everyone there was having a great time as well. Bromley is a place that I would recommend for families looking for a safe place to learn and ski together. Where everything was a mess and frustrating at Stratton, everything seemed calm and relaxed at Bromley. It might not be that big or have much advanced terrain, but Bromley is a fun mountain to go to every once and a while.
I arrived at the Sunbowl just after 9:30 to a traffic jam trying to get into the parking lot, already a bad sign. After booting up at the car I went into the lodge to use the restroom, to find really long lines for both the guest services desk and rentals, and the information TV showed the Gondola, Shooting Star, and Snowbowl lifts all on wind hold, more bad signs. The line for the Sunrise was really bad so I did two runs off the Solstice quad to kill time hoping the winds would diminish. Then I went towards URSA to see how bad its line was and it was outrageously long, skied past to the main base to see a mess of people trying to board the South American and Amex lifts. I now realized this was not worth my time, these were the longest lines I have seen in a decade.
So I went back to the Sunbowl base to my car to check to see how other areas were doing on my phone. I first saw that Pico did indeed have the Summit Express open, so now I was kicking myself mentally. Then I checked Bromley's site and saw that they had all lifts open. That was good enough for me, 20 minutes later just before noon I was in turning in one of my SkiVT tickets at Bromley, ready to try again.
Luckily even though the parking lot was near capacity, the line for the Sun Mountain Express was not long at all, never more than 2 or 3 minutes the rest of the day. Conditions were really awesome soft snow everywhere, almost no ice or scratchy snow. The two glades I went in had excellent coverage, even tried the moguls, which were very forgiving, under the Blue Ribbon quad. It started snowing very hard at 2pm which made the last hour or so awesome as it was hero carving with almost 2 inches and bad visibility. Bromley definitely salvaged the day, and seems like everyone there was having a great time as well. Bromley is a place that I would recommend for families looking for a safe place to learn and ski together. Where everything was a mess and frustrating at Stratton, everything seemed calm and relaxed at Bromley. It might not be that big or have much advanced terrain, but Bromley is a fun mountain to go to every once and a while.
