Wachusett January 25th

[Nick]

Forgot my camera / phone in the car, so no photos today

I arrived around 6PM and skied until around 8PM. Conditions were bizarre ... I think the rain and freeze thaw cycles messed with the snow. Even the freshly groomed stuff skied odd. It was like a mix between spring conditions with some hardpack underneath. Not icy, but easy to catch a tip. Overall granular.

I stuck on the Polar Express the entire time I was there. The lift lines were really long at the Minuteman for the racers and the park rats.

Skied on Smith Walton, 10th, and Conifer. Conditions were consistent across all three trails, again a wierd sticky granular / mashed mix. I was one of the first down on Conifer after they finished grooming it, which was a little better, but quickly turned into the same as the other trails again.

For the first time I've seen this year, they had moguls on 10th. They were a bit hardpack in between, not entirely icy, but just OK to ski. I didn't see anyone skiing them except for me and some other dude the entire time I was there.

The problem for me anyway was in the middle of the mogul run there was one oddly spaced gap between two moguls (vertically up and down the hill). So it was hard to check speed coming to that mogul and then I would end up with too much speed going down the rest of them. For the five times i did that run, I ended up having to run out perpendicular to the field every time instead of running the zipper the whole way down, most often to lots of hoots and hollers from the zillions of middle school kids on their ski club trip

Anyway, good times, but I'm hoping for some more standard packed powder next time I'm out there.

[gmcunni]

where is the gopro pov video?

[Nick]

I bought it while I was there yesterday and found out after it didn't come with any internal storage. I had SD cards at home but none with me, so alas no video yet

[Cheese]

Even the freshly groomed stuff skied odd. It was like a mix between spring conditions with some hardpack underneath. Not icy, but easy to catch a tip. Overall granular.

Is this your first time skiing a fresh groom? Most skiers are familiar with a groom that's done after hours then freezes overnight before it's skied in the morning. A frozen groom sticks to the base layer well and lasts for quite a while. Ski edges carve into it nicely and never reach the hard base layer underneath till later in the day.

A fresh groom is just soft snow resting on a hard base layer. The two layers don't really bond at all. A ski will carve through it easily but without setting the edge in the base layer below the ski and snow will slide on the slick surface below. If one does set the edge in the base layer now the ski plows strangely through the top groom in a snaggy sort of fashion. Your description of the conditions sounds a lot like this to me. Mountains that don't mid-day groom use this as a defense for why they don't. Mountains that do mid-day groom claim other mountains are too cheap. Perhaps now that you've skied it, you can make your own decision whether it really accomplishes anything.

All of this of course hinges on the base layer. If the base layer hasn't been saturated with rain, perhaps a mid-day groom might work. This being New England, the base layer seems to always be white ice.

[Nick]

It wasn't really icy yesterday, just choppy and the snow was a little heavy, on account of a 50 degree day the day prior, I'm assuming.

[speden]

Here's a shot of the ugly bumps. Is that you up at the top coming down them?

[Cheese]

I bought it while I was there yesterday and found out after it didn't come with any internal storage. I had SD cards at home but none with me, so alas no video yet

Also, depending on whether they hav ea medium black Giro Seam in stock, I will probably still be helmetless!

Did you spend your helmet funds on a GoPro?

[Nick]

That looks like a little kid. But I think I was on the lift with a couple kids going down, I saw them on the way down too, probably around 8:15

[Nick]

Did you spend your helmet funds on a GoPro?

No, I still have $$ set aside for a helmet

Besides, the helmet mounted cam looks better than the headband mounted one, oy!

[Cheese]

Here's a shot of the ugly bumps. Is that you up at the top coming down them?

See the 4 boarders/skiers coming down in the first picture? That's where 90% of the people ski this trail. If you look at the second photo, you see the 8-10' path they buff. Bumps to skiers left and deep snow to skiers right but nobody wants any part of the fun.