When you were born in May, you don’t typically expect to ski proper powder on your birthday. Living in Colorado comes with the benefit of skiing late into the spring, oftentimes into June, but you’re typically on corn snow or slush after around mid-April. Fortunately, a nice snowstorm blew over the mountains through Wednesday night, and by the morning of Thursday, May 1, Loveland Ski Area had seen about six inches of new snow (talk about a birthday gift!).
With Loveland being around an hour from Denver and it being a Thursday in May, I hit the road no earlier than 7:30am, stopping for some coffee and breakfast along the way. The highway was near empty and mostly dry the entire way, one of the many benefits of skiing Colorado in the middle of spring. Even at the Loveland Pass exit, where plenty of snow had fallen overnight, the roads were still in good condition.
The snow at the bottom of the mountain felt pretty slow from the opening, even though those six inches had fallen at the base. The further up you went, the colder and faster the snow got. I took Lift 2 to access Ptarmigan to access the South Chutes, where the snow was deep and the lines were steep. Conditions were six inches on top of a hard, icy base, so digging your edges in too deep could be a bit jarring. But if you could stay on top it was a perfect powder day.
After hitting the South Chutes I waited patiently to catch the opening of Lift 9, hoping to snag some wide-open powder runs off Loveland’s impressive Ridge area. Primer Bowl came first. The snow near the top had clearly been blasted by the wind, but that made the coverage even better. It was a tough top layer but it kept the skis floating and the speed high. Big freeride turns were the name of the game, keeping your edges away from the tougher layer below.
I managed to hit Patrol Bowl, Jelly Roll, Super Bowl, Wild Child, and Porcupine Saddle before I called it a day (hitting several of those runs multiple times). It was never difficult to find an untouched line, and several quick bursts of snow kept providing free refills. The best run of the day was on Wild Child, where I managed to sneak my way through some rocks and grab some fresh turns on a face hardly touched by a soul before me.
The weather throughout the day kept shifting between sunny and snowy, making it a bit difficult to pick the right goggle lens but providing a great variety of vibes. Of course, before calling it a day I put down one of Loveland’s iconic green chili cheese dogs from Ptarmigan Roost, a must have the next time you’re up there.
Loveland is keeping the party going for another two weekends, with their final day of the season currently set for May 11. There are several ski areas still open in Colorado and there’s a potential for even more new snow headed towards the state, so don’t miss out on the final few weeks of skiing.
