Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Patrol has been hard at work opening up more of legendary Heather Canyon today, with control gate access from Moon Bowl to the Heather lift line. They also opened gates to Elk and Yoda Bowls, and God’s Wall for some primo deep powder plunging.
There was a 12 hour reprieve from the storm, but clouds moved in around noon and by 2 PM it was snowing up a storm again. The forecast has built to a foot or two by the weekend - so the MLK holiday will be epic at Meadows!
Our lift maintenance crew deiced all the towers on Vista today - that was a huge task considering there was well over a foot of ice built up from this storm. Remember that it started over a week ago with a freezing level that plunged from 9,000 feet to 2,500 feet overnight. Today was the first crack at deice our teams had on Vista - and they made the most of it. When you see Derrick, Chuck or Marshall, tell them thank you for the continuous brass hammering to knock off the ice. Careful about back-patting or offering a high five. Who knows if they’ll be able to lift up they arms that high after hanging from towers for hours hammering ice.
Here’s the word from Marshall Woods, Lift Maintenance Manager, “We got all towers de-iced and night crew is putting the rope back on tower 14 after a de-rail during de-icing. We still have some work to do clearing the haul rope and de-icing the commline.”
So will Vista run Thursday? It’s highly unlikely, due to the forecast for snow, wind and visibility. There’s also a lot of grooming and all the work patrol will have to do. But today’s deice gives a glimmer of a chance if the weather allows all the other prep work that has to be done. Know that Meadows, led by our dedicated lift maintenance team, is doing everything we can to open more lifts and terrain.
If you were up today you may have noticed the all team call out to the bottom of Vista to free the chairs from the five feet of snow that has fallen since Friday. Before and after - great job team!
