Ski Report: Mt Baldy and the Rock Ski Theorem

I spent Saturday up at Mt. Baldy skiing with my friends Christina, Dianna, Tyler and Ben. It was a typical Baldy day...sunny (until clouds rolled in around 3pm) and upper 40's. The snow cover was good by Baldy standards, although there were still plenty of rocks and trees sticking out of the snow to keep things interesting. Due to the daily freeze-thaw cycle, we spent the morning skiing the south/southeast facing terrain off of chair 4 (to the left of the base lodge when looking up). It was already nice and soft by 10AM. We moved over to Thunder Mt around noon. Most of the off-piste terrain there was still frozen. But we were surprised to find that the snow on the north facing terrain(just to skiers right of the ridge the chair lift goes up) was still soft and powdery in spots. With this knowledge in hand, we headed over to South Bowl for a couple of runs before lunch. The snow in the north facing section of the bowl (all the way to skiers left) was good but inconsistent. It would alternate from being soft powder to ice topped with death cookies. All in all, it was good skiing that challenged you to adapt to the terrain and deal with it. We took a few more runs , moving further and further to skier's right working our way towards the lift. That side had definitely received more sun and we were able to find some nice untracked soft snow left over from last week's storm.
What left me really excited about Saturday was that it provided me even more reason to believe that there is strong scientific link between using rock skis and being able to ski over rocks without getting core shots. Like the week before, I was skiing where ever and as fast I wanted to, without really caring whether or not I hit a rock. The snow cover was marginally better than the week before, but there were still plenty of rocks to be found. Most of the day I was pretty good about avoiding rocks. But on the last run from the top, I was going full speed under the Thunder Mt lift. What I failed to notice on any of the rides up the lift that day was that towards the end of the slope, there was one spot where the snow stopped and a 5 yard stretch of gravel began. Unfortunately, I didn't see it until 10 yards before the snow stopped and I was going way too fast to be able to stop in time. So I decided to go with it and ski the gravel. I did jump off the snow a little to try to keep my full weight from being on the rocks. But as I was going over, I still heard that painful sound of base material meeting granite. Even though they were rock skis, a little part of me did die at that moment. I decided to wait until I was at the bottom to look at my skis as I'm a firm believer in the saying "igorance is bliss." Amazingly enough though, when I did look at them, there was nothing but a few long (2/3 ski length) scrapes and none of them were core shots. So it appears that either Dynastar is on to something in their choice of base material or there is a scientific link preventing rock skis from getting core shots.
The other interesting part of Saturday was that it was the first time I'd ever skied with little kids(since I was one myself). Ben brought his three sons along. The rest of us skied with Ben's two oldest sons, Andy (12) and Jake(9), while Ben skied with his youngest son Danny. I was amazed how good Andy and Jake were. Perhaps they weren't quite as good as the phenom kids who make it into the Warren Miller movies. But we took them down steep terrain that in places had really crappy snow. They didn't flinch for a minute and there was never any bitching. They were awesome. Before this I had always thought that it must be tough for a parent to have to give up skiing good terrain to spend years sticking to intermediate terrain teaching their kids to ski. But Saturday made me realize that it must be a great feeling when you finally see your kids become great skiers and develop the love for the sport that you have. The only thing that sucks is that Ben has a really narrow window to enjoy skiing with his sons because within 5-10 years they'll be good enough where they won't want to wait for dad anymore.