Berkshire East - 02/10/04

[skijay]

Date Skied: 2/10/04 (9:30 to 1:30)

Resort: Berkshire East

Conditions: Hard packed scratchy & loose granular to soft packed as the temp increased.

Trip Report:

Today was to be Killington, but I had a late start and did not want to drive 2.5 hours to ski 3 hours to then drive home 2.5 hours. I called Mount Snow only to find out the ticket price was $57 and I think Stratton was $55. At approximately 9am I was approaching exit 26 on I-91. The Beast is about 20 minutes from the exit, so I decided to check it out. I knew it had to be less than $57 for a ticket. I pulled in the parking lot and saw about 10 busses and about 100 cars. I was on the triple by 9:30am. The first run was the Mohawk. Did I mention it was only $25 for a midweek ticket? Come to find out there was some sort of High School Race event going on. They were using the "Competition" trail.. The Beast has nice long trails! The high speed double was open so I took advantage of no lines. I think I did all of the runs from the triple and double that were open. One trail, Jug, was closed in the lower section. The cover was thin and there were some nice looking no icy bumps. I wished it was open. I liked Roy’s Way, it was a nice twisty narrow trail (hardpacked and scratchy).

I went over to the Quad by taking the Outback and then Round About. There was nobody over here. I did a few runs, one I think was Minnie Dole. There was some serious ice on the upper part of this trail.

I went back to the triple and double lift and skied the trails for the rest of my day. They shut the double down but turned it on when the triple’s line got long (from racers).

I left at about 1:30pm. It was 36 degrees at my car and it started to snow.

I only took a few pictures. The first is the view from the top:



This is the nice bumped part of Jug that was closed:



What that nasty freezing rain does to a trail:

[Greg]

Great to see some Beast reports. I will have to get up there this season!