Burke Mountain: March 23, 2007 (Sweet Spring Skiing)

[thetrailboss]

Date: March 23, 2007

2006 Trip Report #: 46! New TB record!!!

Resort: Burke Mountain

Conditions: SC

Weather: Clouds giving way to afternoon sun. Temps in the 40’s with a cold breeze.

Trip Report: A nice spring afternoon at the mountain. Drove up for Friday afternoon turns (after a long week) and in anticipation of Pond Skimming and another Spring Day tomorrow. Got to the mountain at 1pm and looked up. Didn’t look so good…some grass here and there

Got on the HSQ and headed to the top. The snow was surprisingly soft and good. I rode up the Willoughby Quad. First run was Carriage Road. In good shape. Powderhorn was doable, but getting thin, especially at the base.

Decided to try Bear Den Ledges after hearing that it was soft (the guy I rode up the lift with talked my head off….I did get that one piece of advice though). Good choice. The headwall was deep, deep corn snow. Wow. Amazing. This trail, like Warren’s, has skied consistently well this season. Thanks to the Mountain Ops for making the effort to blow LOTS of snow on it. Run of the day…with East Bowl.

Speaking of the latter, I decided to give it a shot. I had my short sticks on, so I knew that I could turn around any thin spots. Wasn’t sure what to expect since it had not been groomed in a day or two. The snow was deep at the top. Got to the first pitch and looked down—smooth, deep, soft snow. Took my first turn…was very deep and skied like buttah. The trail was in great shape. Some thin spots that could be easily avoided. Some rocks poking out, but easily avoided. Lower part was the thinnest and that is because it turns to the SW. Only problem was that the run out was sticky and slow. Small price to pay.

I stopped by MidBurke and saw that it was packed. Glad that I chose to start at Sherburne. The racers packed the lodge and the slopes.

I hit East Bowl again and once more before the closed it for the afternoon. At this point it was 3:15pm. Because the quad takes some time and the races were done, I hit the Poma for three fast runs. While I was there, the mountain team was setting up the Pond. They actually began to FILL it with water...man, that is going to be cold!

Did Upper Warren’s—it was icing over. Good cover. Hit Bear Den twice more via the Poma. On the second run, I pre-released just above the steepest pitch. Must have hit a mogul wrong…slid quite a way down before getting up and hiking back up to my ski. Stepped in and continued down. The snow is really deep…nice. Worth another spin. Lower Fox’s and Lower Bear Den were solid.

At 3:54 I hit the quad and rode to the top. Did a run down Wilderness and Powderhorn. Wilderness had some thin spots, but nice bumps. Powderhorn was decent…until the final drop to the Toll Road, where I hit a stone in the snow that did some minor base damage to my freshly tuned skis I can fix it…..Decided to hit Dipper Doodle, which had been groomed during the week The lower part of the trail is almost done….only a couple routes onto Lower Dipper.

After listening to the awards ceremony for a few minutes, I headed down High Meadows back to the base. Nice soft snow down low. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is still lots of snow…the glades were closed and some of the lower elevation natural snow runs are closed because of the grass. Heard rumors that they were considering extending the season a week after last week’s storm. But yesterday’s warmth and rain killed those plans. Hey guys, we’d love one more weekend….even if it is just the snowmaking runs.

[thetrailboss]

A great summary of the races from The Caledonian Record.