billski
Active member
Saturday
After a pretty intense day of skiing Friday, I packed it in and drove home this afternoon, Saturday. A no-ski day for sure. The skies opened up at 5:30AM today and the rain came and went in bands. The roads were quite icy. Not the trees, but the ground. It's hard to say if it was freezing rain, but probably. A neighbor's truck with chains could not make it up the road until the DPW came around with gravel (this was not your father's sand) and lots of salt. Really sad.
I-91 was closed for a few hours this morning from Waterbury north to Burlington - a veritable skating rink. So I hung around until about 9:30 and ventured onto the roads. Lots of ruts in the Left hand travel lane. Right lane was down to the pavement and wet. Passed two separate incidents involving 18-wheelers sliding off into the ditch. When I hit NH, for the duration of 1-91 the trees were all ice-covered. Amazingly the lift was spinning at Whaleback. I just didn't have it in me to stop. When I hit Concord it was all rain south to Boston.
So let's get back to the skiing
Friday
Spent the day on Mansfield. If anyone can make lemonade out of lemons, Stowe's snow making and grooming can. There were a lot of snow making whales all over. Wonder what the plan is for them.
In general, the trails were a mix of loose powder/granular mix (they do a nice job with the mix) and a very hard packed, edge-able. Not FGR, kind of like a Frozen, highly compacted (like windblown) snow. Without an aggressive edge, you would skid on it. Lots of boarders simply doing a LOT of skidding today.
To really enjoy the day you needed to have your A-game on. You couldn't just ski with abandon, you needed to scope and pick your turns quickly and often. Most all the trails skied the same - Liftline, Nosedive, Lookout, Hayride. I'd say Liftline was probably the best trail of the day and skied well thanks to a boatload of snow. Even the area that usually off early was skiing well. Some trails were closed, such as Goat. As we tired, we opted for some easy cruisers, such as Midway North Slope and Lord were good.
Off the gondi Perry Merrill skied well as did gondolier. Again, on all of these, there was scratchies to be found. It was clearly a day/week for groomers. Cliff trail was a Fugly ice skating rink. Too bad there isn't an easier was over to the quad. The triple was running.
Trails without snowmaking began to show their bones. Those with new boards from certain So. VT areas would not be pleased.
By the end of the day the trails were starting to show their wear. This was disappointing considering how few people were skiing yesterday. It was so empty that singles were taking quad chairs by themselves, with many chairs being simply empty. Scared away by the forecast. There were really no liftlines at all on the quad or gondi, so we got a tremendous number of runs in. We were fried by 2:30pm.
I was hoping we could get a couple hours of skiing in this morning as the quad starts at 7:30, but it was not to be.
I cannot imagine how bad things are going to look over there. They were pumping dozens of snowguns yesterday. You can be absolutely sure they will pummel the slopes as soon as the temps permit. No money will be spared. They posted a half hour delay in opening the quad and gondi for tomorrow. The rains won't stop until late. I think they are going to do their best to chomp at this stuff (I'm a little surprised since the rain wont have drained out) after it freezes. Maybe they are going to plow down some of those whales.
After a pretty intense day of skiing Friday, I packed it in and drove home this afternoon, Saturday. A no-ski day for sure. The skies opened up at 5:30AM today and the rain came and went in bands. The roads were quite icy. Not the trees, but the ground. It's hard to say if it was freezing rain, but probably. A neighbor's truck with chains could not make it up the road until the DPW came around with gravel (this was not your father's sand) and lots of salt. Really sad.
I-91 was closed for a few hours this morning from Waterbury north to Burlington - a veritable skating rink. So I hung around until about 9:30 and ventured onto the roads. Lots of ruts in the Left hand travel lane. Right lane was down to the pavement and wet. Passed two separate incidents involving 18-wheelers sliding off into the ditch. When I hit NH, for the duration of 1-91 the trees were all ice-covered. Amazingly the lift was spinning at Whaleback. I just didn't have it in me to stop. When I hit Concord it was all rain south to Boston.
So let's get back to the skiing
Friday
Spent the day on Mansfield. If anyone can make lemonade out of lemons, Stowe's snow making and grooming can. There were a lot of snow making whales all over. Wonder what the plan is for them.
In general, the trails were a mix of loose powder/granular mix (they do a nice job with the mix) and a very hard packed, edge-able. Not FGR, kind of like a Frozen, highly compacted (like windblown) snow. Without an aggressive edge, you would skid on it. Lots of boarders simply doing a LOT of skidding today.
To really enjoy the day you needed to have your A-game on. You couldn't just ski with abandon, you needed to scope and pick your turns quickly and often. Most all the trails skied the same - Liftline, Nosedive, Lookout, Hayride. I'd say Liftline was probably the best trail of the day and skied well thanks to a boatload of snow. Even the area that usually off early was skiing well. Some trails were closed, such as Goat. As we tired, we opted for some easy cruisers, such as Midway North Slope and Lord were good.
Off the gondi Perry Merrill skied well as did gondolier. Again, on all of these, there was scratchies to be found. It was clearly a day/week for groomers. Cliff trail was a Fugly ice skating rink. Too bad there isn't an easier was over to the quad. The triple was running.
Trails without snowmaking began to show their bones. Those with new boards from certain So. VT areas would not be pleased.
By the end of the day the trails were starting to show their wear. This was disappointing considering how few people were skiing yesterday. It was so empty that singles were taking quad chairs by themselves, with many chairs being simply empty. Scared away by the forecast. There were really no liftlines at all on the quad or gondi, so we got a tremendous number of runs in. We were fried by 2:30pm.
I was hoping we could get a couple hours of skiing in this morning as the quad starts at 7:30, but it was not to be.
I cannot imagine how bad things are going to look over there. They were pumping dozens of snowguns yesterday. You can be absolutely sure they will pummel the slopes as soon as the temps permit. No money will be spared. They posted a half hour delay in opening the quad and gondi for tomorrow. The rains won't stop until late. I think they are going to do their best to chomp at this stuff (I'm a little surprised since the rain wont have drained out) after it freezes. Maybe they are going to plow down some of those whales.
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