Joshua B
Member
On Sunday morning, my parents and I weighed our options and decided to ski Crotched on Sunday and Gunstock on Monday. For quite a while, Crotched has been reporting 100% of their trails open, while other areas had a smaller percentage open. It was a great decision because their conditions were beautiful. They've made a good amount of snow. None of the official trails had bare spots or thin cover, and the conditions were packed powder on top of the firm base. One trail (not an official trail on the map) under the double chair was open, but had very thin, rock hard cover. But this was a glaring exception to the rest of the well-conditioned slopes. All lifts were in operation.
The terrain park was fun and there was a "Big Air Competition." Mountain Dew was there, and the DJ was blasting modern rock tunes from the base area. Meanwhile, in my own little world, I was determined to learn a real jump so I took about twelve launches off a conservative kicker, each time finding more courage to increase my speed so I'd clear the flat top and land on the down ramp. After about four tries I made it. Of course at that point I decided just launching off the jump wasn't enough...I needed to be able to pull a daffy while in the air. After that I needed to pump back and forth. There's a triple chair that's convenient for short laps in the park. Later in the afternoon, the Big Air thing had become so nuts that a snowmobiler was towing the snowboarders up Velocity (the upper portion of the terrain park), turning back down toward the lower portion of the park, and towing them down to pick up enough speed to hit the large jump near the top of the lower park. At the last minute the snowboarder would let go, and the snowmobile would speed by the jump, very close to the crowd. It felt dangerous. All day these guys were pulling 720s so it was fun to watch. I really envied the condo owners who had a great view from their decks. By the way, the condos are in beautiful shape.
Notes:
$29 for all day skiing on a Sunday is very affordable.
I was at Crotched's opening day and I thought their rule of keeping your gear in lockers downstairs was kinda wack, but this time I decided to play by the rules and change downstairs in the large, open room where tickets are sold. It really wasn't much of an inconvenience because there's so much open space. I just tossed my stuff in a locker withouth paying for a key.
The terrain park was fun and there was a "Big Air Competition." Mountain Dew was there, and the DJ was blasting modern rock tunes from the base area. Meanwhile, in my own little world, I was determined to learn a real jump so I took about twelve launches off a conservative kicker, each time finding more courage to increase my speed so I'd clear the flat top and land on the down ramp. After about four tries I made it. Of course at that point I decided just launching off the jump wasn't enough...I needed to be able to pull a daffy while in the air. After that I needed to pump back and forth. There's a triple chair that's convenient for short laps in the park. Later in the afternoon, the Big Air thing had become so nuts that a snowmobiler was towing the snowboarders up Velocity (the upper portion of the terrain park), turning back down toward the lower portion of the park, and towing them down to pick up enough speed to hit the large jump near the top of the lower park. At the last minute the snowboarder would let go, and the snowmobile would speed by the jump, very close to the crowd. It felt dangerous. All day these guys were pulling 720s so it was fun to watch. I really envied the condo owners who had a great view from their decks. By the way, the condos are in beautiful shape.
Notes:
$29 for all day skiing on a Sunday is very affordable.
I was at Crotched's opening day and I thought their rule of keeping your gear in lockers downstairs was kinda wack, but this time I decided to play by the rules and change downstairs in the large, open room where tickets are sold. It really wasn't much of an inconvenience because there's so much open space. I just tossed my stuff in a locker withouth paying for a key.
