Saddleback Mountain Resort on Saturday, February 26, 2022

		Saddleback Mountain Resort Saturday, February 26, 2022
		Submitted on February 26, 2022 by rocket21 (1408)
	Session	Full Day
	Ticket Type	Indy Pass
	Lift Lines	3 to 5 minutes
	Trail Conditions	85% open; Packed Powder, Loose Granular
	Glades	A lot open (not Casablanca), but not much base.
	Moguls	On natural trails.
	Terrain Park(s)	Wheeler Slope and Gee Whiz
	Run of the Day	Tight Line
	Food and Beverage	No masks required and all indoor employees I saw were unmasked as well. Nice to have normal human interaction. Decent food. That said, nowhere near enough seating for today's crowd.
	Comments	$5 to get an RFID for the Indy Pass. Just about everything off the high speed quad and lower mountain quad was open. From the Kennebago Quad, Dazzler was roped after the Tight Line entrance, but some terrain beyond there was accessible via the Firefly cross over. Nice packed powder conditions for the first part of the morning with a little more than 6" of fluffy powder. Steeps without snowmaking were rock ski country with very little base. Lower angle trails without snowmaking could be skied with caution with some frozen base. Groomed trails were scratchy by lunchtime; you'd never know there had been new snow just hours before. Green Weaver was a constant traffic jam with plenty of patchy ice. The headwall on Tightline was also scraped pretty quickly, but it was good below Firefly. Grey Ghost remained decent. From the T-Bar complex, Blue Devil held up very well. South Branch Quad trails were packed powder and powder even in the afternoon, due to the low angle. A few trails (such as Lower Green Hornet) were left ungroomed. Lift lines were generally about 5 minutes on the high speed quad. The two fixed grip quad lift lines varied at random, sometimes fast, sometimes five or more minutes. The T-Bar was generally only a few person wait. It did seem to me that the trails were a bit congested (still quiet compared to the mega resorts), in part because there were a lot of inexperienced skiers. I think the high speed quad may have tipped the balance a little too much in terms of putting more people on the trails than they can hold (since many are narrow trails). I imagine having more open in the Kennebago complex would help. I recollect three of the steeps having fan guns before the closure, but I only saw them on Tightline, and noticed empty Polecat footings on Supervisor. Chilly start in the single digits, but sunny skies and not too much wind helped. Very friendly employees. The regulars were also quite friendly. One remarked that this was the busiest day he had seen this season. Snowmaking is reportedly done for the season, so hopefully we have a snowy March to get some of the fun steeps back in play.
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	Report Rating	5