Mountain Creek - 12/19/2009

Date(s) Skied: 12/19/2009

Resort or Ski Area: Mountain Creek, Vernon, NJ

Conditions: Groomed Hardpack, some wind blown man made powder

Trip Report: Went to Mountain Creek for opening day at North (South opened on Wed with one trail). This was my first time driving to MC from my new digs, and it took substantially less time than I had anticipated, so I pulled into the parking lot a few minutes before 7am and had plenty of time to relax and put on my equipment in time for 8am first chair.

They had guns going on almost every single trail. I was just expecting Horizon (green circle) to be open from top-to-bottom, but was pleasently surprised to see Sayonara (blue square) also open on the lower half of the mountain.

The snow was exactly what I expected, hard packed courderoy that was frozen in some spots. Overall, it skied fairly well, and I had no problems keeping an edge. I lapped the 1.5 open trails 7 times from 8-9:45, and then left to get some things done around the house.

All-in-all not a bad opening day. I expect that the next trails at North to be opened will be the blues in the Great Northern/Independence Pass/ Khyber Pass. I'll be there early tomorrow, hopefully some of the natural snow falling can help speed things up.

I just got back from there. I skied there from 7:15 - 9:00 tonight. I skied North and it was mostly hard pack with some icy patches, the good snow was along the edges. The 5" of fresh natural they got was all skied off. They added the blues Garden State, Fox Tail and Twist today so there was a little more variety to ski. It was a fun time considering it was the only local area open on Sunday night.

I was there for a few runs Sunday morning, and I saw a guy skinning up the hill. I passed him as he was making the turn onto Twist from Horizon, and then when I got back to the top after my run, he was taking the skins off his skis at the top.