Sugarbush, Aril 3rd, Thursday - cornfest!!

[Bumpsis]

Date(s) Skied: [/b] April 3, Thursday

Resort or Ski Area: Sugarbush

Conditions: Corn, softened packed snow, hardpack, ice

Trip Report:

Day trip, out of Boston. Long haul but the weather looked really promissig: blue sky and plenty of strong April sun. Even though I knew that the mountain received rain on Tuesday and then foroze up, the sun would make it soft and it did!!

Got there about 11 am and hit the North Lynx Peak. The sun had the chance to work on those slopes the longest due to its eastern exposure. The sufrace was variable, but mostly dry corn on soft surface. Here and there, a bit harder packed snow, but over all just great. The base temperature was about 34 F with light winds. The peaks were colder but due to strong sun, the snow was corning up.

Moguls on Moring Star were a bit of a work out, especially for a warm up run. Edge of the trail was bare in spots, forcing me to keep a tight line. The trail is fairy narrow anyway, but the bups were great.
After a few runs all the way to bottom of Gate House Quad, I made my way to Castlerock chair.
The trails leading there from Superbarvo were quite hard in places and there were number of areas of just plain blue ice. The trails that were not exposed to sun were hard, everything in the sun was just perfect.

Castlerock was just pure heaven. Absolutely great bumps with fabulous multiple lines and dry corn that never got wet due to the fact that air temps stayed cool. Actually, I was getting a bit chilled on the ride up - all that sweat that was generated on the way down. Because the corn never got mushy, it stayed fairly fast. Middle Earth had just great cover, top to bottom. Castlerock run has some dirt showing in just a few places but not bad. Lift line, in awesome shape but on its upper part, it has one "pshyche-out" zone, rock and ice all across the slope. It was negotiable but it did require concentraion and controlled jumping. Fear concentrates the mind and it's all good. There was a jug-handle bypass as well.
I was really amazed that even on the the same trail, areas of snow that were in the shadow, stayed hard, the snow in the sun was just superbly soft (corn)

I took couple of runs, than a lunch break and then came back to Castle rock for some more corn.
After a few more runs I had to throw in the towel. My legs were toast and I finished off the day back on North Lynx which was in pretty much the same shape as I found in at 11 AM. I did take one run off Superbravo - Snowball, connecting to Spring Fling. Corn on top, but Springfiling, like all other slopes facing away from the sun, it never did softened up. Good for edging control excercise.
Over all, I found my cornfest and it was nirvana.
I've been dreaming about conditions like these and the dream came true. One awesome day!!!

[ckofer]

Officially jealous.