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Date(s) Skied: Sunday, 3/28/04 - 8:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Resort or Ski Area: Ski Butternut, Great Barrrington, Massachusetts
Conditions: Sping conditions, slush. Bright sun, few breezes, warm - about 50*F. No crowds.
Trip Report: We decided to take a trip to Butternut to ski the morning. We arrived at about 8:15 AM and found the lot to be pretty empty. Got geared up and on the lift shortly after 8:30 AM. We commented on how strange it felt to be sitting on the chair in 50 degrees will strips of snow only on the trails. First run was down AppleJack which was pretty fast. The surface was a freshly groomed and packed slush that caused you to move pretty quickly. Essentially, every run after that was slush as the sun warmed things up and skier traffic broke up the groomed surface.
We skied four or five runs off the Top Flight Quad and then noticed the Overbrook Triple was running. We hit Freewheeler and Downspout a number of times off the triple. Conditions made for challenging skiing. Very heavy slushy snow. Stopping was tricky if you built up a large amount of speed and I felt a lot of lateral stress on my knees while turning. It was, however, a great day to be out on the mountain. Sunshine, warm, and great scenery. Coverage overall was pretty good, but some trails are showing dirt patches - namely Upper Downspout. Uptown was closed so we had to speed off Downsput to get back to the Quad. A large slush puddle hampered our progress. We took many more runs off the Quad including Applejack and Lucifer's Leap/Hob Nob. Run of the day was one of my Butternut favorites, Applejack. Great coverage throughout and there was a pretty solid base which let you really get an edge in.
Butternut is hoping to stay open through this week and I'm not convinced they'll make it to the weekend, especially with this week's forecast. There are areas with tons of snow, but what's going to kill them is connecting/access trails and the coverage at the base. There are many wet slush puddles all around the mountain. This past weekend was most likely their last with almost 100% terrain.
We never waited in line for more than 3 or so chairs so we got a lot of skiing in for 3 1/2 hours. A really fun spring skiing day, but probably my last local outing. I hope to get three more days in when I head to Reggae-Fest at Sugarloaf next month. Let's hope the base hold on up there!
Click HERE for pics.
Resort or Ski Area: Ski Butternut, Great Barrrington, Massachusetts
Conditions: Sping conditions, slush. Bright sun, few breezes, warm - about 50*F. No crowds.
Trip Report: We decided to take a trip to Butternut to ski the morning. We arrived at about 8:15 AM and found the lot to be pretty empty. Got geared up and on the lift shortly after 8:30 AM. We commented on how strange it felt to be sitting on the chair in 50 degrees will strips of snow only on the trails. First run was down AppleJack which was pretty fast. The surface was a freshly groomed and packed slush that caused you to move pretty quickly. Essentially, every run after that was slush as the sun warmed things up and skier traffic broke up the groomed surface.
We skied four or five runs off the Top Flight Quad and then noticed the Overbrook Triple was running. We hit Freewheeler and Downspout a number of times off the triple. Conditions made for challenging skiing. Very heavy slushy snow. Stopping was tricky if you built up a large amount of speed and I felt a lot of lateral stress on my knees while turning. It was, however, a great day to be out on the mountain. Sunshine, warm, and great scenery. Coverage overall was pretty good, but some trails are showing dirt patches - namely Upper Downspout. Uptown was closed so we had to speed off Downsput to get back to the Quad. A large slush puddle hampered our progress. We took many more runs off the Quad including Applejack and Lucifer's Leap/Hob Nob. Run of the day was one of my Butternut favorites, Applejack. Great coverage throughout and there was a pretty solid base which let you really get an edge in.
Butternut is hoping to stay open through this week and I'm not convinced they'll make it to the weekend, especially with this week's forecast. There are areas with tons of snow, but what's going to kill them is connecting/access trails and the coverage at the base. There are many wet slush puddles all around the mountain. This past weekend was most likely their last with almost 100% terrain.
We never waited in line for more than 3 or so chairs so we got a lot of skiing in for 3 1/2 hours. A really fun spring skiing day, but probably my last local outing. I hope to get three more days in when I head to Reggae-Fest at Sugarloaf next month. Let's hope the base hold on up there!
Click HERE for pics.