Caberfae Peaks opened for the season on December 5. Word on the street is that Saturday was a fun, sunny and slush-filled day. While I couldn’t make it on Saturday, I did drive up with my nephew for Sunday funday.

It was drearily foggy most of the day, I think we didn’t see the sun until we were packing up to leave around 3pm, and for most of that time we couldn’t even see the South Peak from the North Peak Quad lift.

While I have a soft spot for warm temps and slush conditions it is December, and we should be dealing with colder temps and base-building amounts of snow to help weather the rest of what’s shaping up to be a fairly miserable El Nino season. Caberfae Peaks did as well as they could do given Mother Nature’s unwillingness to cooperate.

The Shelter Double and the North Peak Quad lifts were running, providing at least top-to-bottom terrain on the North Peak. These lifts serviced a handful of trails: Smiling Irishmen, Shelter, Upper and Lower Canyon, the upper portion of Easy Street feeding in to Lower Ski Shop. Smiling Irishmen was pretty brown by day’s end, and the best coverage seemed to be found on Upper Canyon and Lower Canyon, but even that is (unfortunately) not saying much.

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I took one of my vintage boards out again, the 1991 Burton Air 5. It’s hell on my knees because it’s so dreadfully heavy, but it’s a real fun stick to ride in these spring conditions. Like last week at Nub’s, it was a head-turner. Everyone wants to know what it is!. Here’s a self-shot log tap:

The view from the Shelter Double chair was pretty bleak. The North Peak (not pictured) doesn’t have a single snowflake on it.

Stalefish on this natural hip between Lower Canyon and Easy Street:

I love stump jibs and log jibs, this small little section of tranny on Easy Street usually has some exposed logs to tap:

Unfortunately El Nino is hitting the midwest, mid-atlantic, and northeast regions hard, and Michigan is no exception. Although a few ski areas received some measurable accumulation prior to Thanksgiving, it’s barely been cold enough to blow snow since then, and daytime highs have been upwards of 50 degrees. Boyne, Nub’s Nob, Crystal Mountain, and Caberfae are all on the struggle bus right now, clinging desperately to what little snow remains and with barely enough snow to run the groomers, and more warm weather in this week’s forecast; the season looks to be “on hold” until colder weather returns.