Berkshire East MA 3-12-05

[loafer89]

I made it back up to Berkshire East again this weekend despite the snowstorm and poor driving conditions. I woke up at 4:30am to heavy snowfall at my house and about 4" of snow on the ground. By the time we got to the ferry there was at least 6" of snow in Port Jefferson.

Driving on I-95 - I-91 was a white knuckle afair with lots of snow and icy spots most of the way to Berkshire east. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get to the mountain and we arrived at 10:15am.

Conditions on the mountain were powder/cut up powder with about 8" of new snow and it was snowing for most of the day, stopping at about 2pm.

My first run was with my son down Mohawk which had deep powder on it with up to 12" of new snow on the trail edges, my son had some difficulty with the deep snow but he managed to ski okay. We also skied Outback which was groomed and had about 2-3" of powder covering the trail.

I put my son in a 2 hour lesson and skied from 12:30 to 2:30 with my friend who had come along for some powder. We skied Jug which was quite thin at the top with no base underneath our turns and between the moguls. Tomahawk Glade was alot of fun after we found the enterance to it off of the top part of Jug, the top part has very thick evergreen trees that prevent alot of snow from sifting through so cover there was thin. The middle and lower parts of the trail were alot of fun with 1-2' of cover. I was told by ski patrol that this trail is not open very often? it certainly is the steepest and longest glade that I have ever skied in Massachusets.

Blizzard Island glade was a really nice glade that we discovered off of the West Quad lift, this is an intermediate glade with a nice pitch and well spaced trees and it had lots of deep snowcover. Minnie Dole and UMass were okay with thin spots that were easily avoided, especially between the small mouguls that were forming on the trails.

Flying Cloud was nice with lots of loose cut up powder on it with some icy spots in the same places as last weekend, competition was also nice but without the icy areas.