Wachusett 1/17/08

Date(s) Skied: Thursday 1/17/08

Resort or Ski Area: Wachusett Mountain, MA

Conditions: PP, Frankensnow

Trip Report:

Skied 12:30 to 3 today. The guns were apparently a bit messy last night and the groomers didn't do much of a job making up for it. A ton of frankensnow and very weird mounds hanging around with flash-frozen snow on them.

Conifer: The best of the summit trails today with good packed powder all the way. Seemed like the guns put better snow down on this one than the rest of the summit trails. It was firm snow with a lot of speed, but very grippy for short turns as well.

10th: The middle was slick on upper with nice LSGR on the right. At the bottom, the middle had lots of weird icy mounds that I was talking about earlier. Most of lower Salamander had this. Lower 10th was better with more PP.

Smith: Upper was scraped on almost the entire headwall except near the bottom of it where some loose stuff had fallen down from higher up. Lower had a lot of frankensnow and random mounds, including one very weird one straight across the trail at the bottom. The groomers need to get their act together. Polar Express was ski on the entire time and nearly in full speed.

Hitchcock/Frannie's: Took a run through the mini-park which was the same as a couple weeks ago. Vickery lift was closed so I didn't feel like lapping it.

Mass Pike: Haven't skied that one since they put the Vickery Bowl in. Kind of a cool view looking down into the big scary Vickery Bowl. Nice scenic trail with a great view of Smith as you approach the summit trails. though the entire first half is uphill and requires skating. Minuteman had a small line at times but was also usually just about ski on. A little slower than normal too.

I might be back tomorrow night with school. If not, I'll be at Mount Snow Monday freezing my ass off.

I was there tonight... the afternoon groom took care of a lot of the random lumps, but some snow was still pretty messy.

The trail of the night was Smith... the race team had a course set up on skiers left the whole way down upper smith, which was unfortunate as that is my preferred line, but the right was still pretty nice. I got to hit 10th, Conifer and Ralph's right as they were re-opened, and they all skied nice after the fresh groom. There was a crater that I almost died on on Conifer however, I came over a little rise, turned, and turned back real quick because there was a hole about 3 feet long and two feet wide that was about a foot higher on the far side.It looked like it was at the edge of one of the groomer tracks.

Hitchcock was as scratchy as it has been almost all season (in the middle of the 'steep' section of the trail).

Time wise I was there from about 4:45 - 7:45.

-w

You know, I can't figure Wachusett out. Tuesday evening was a mob scene but emptied out around 7PM. I planned on going again on Wednesday night, but from the web cam the lines looked disgusting right until just about closing. Of course, Thursday, I didn't have a chance to get out, and the lift lines were very light all the way from 4PM to closing. I can't win.

Mark_151 said:

You know, I can't figure Wachusett out. Tuesday evening was a mob scene but emptied out around 7PM. I planned on going again on Wednesday night, but from the web cam the lines looked disgusting right until just about closing. Of course, Thursday, I didn't have a chance to get out, and the lift lines were very light all the way from 4PM to closing. I can't win.

Click to expand...

I suspect a lot of events (racing?) on Tuesday PM?

It is raining cats and dogs right now, temp well above freezing. When this cold spell hits Saturday night, Mr. Freeze will make for an interesting sun/monday at wawa... I suspect saturday will be a major mob scene most anywhere...

Mark_151 said:

You know, I can't figure Wachusett out. Tuesday evening was a mob scene but emptied out around 7PM. I planned on going again on Wednesday night, but from the web cam the lines looked disgusting right until just about closing. Of course, Thursday, I didn't have a chance to get out, and the lift lines were very light all the way from 4PM to closing. I can't win.

Click to expand...

There was some kind of WFNX event Wednesday night. I was up last night for racing. I thought the snow was in good shape. Moguls haven't been rebuilt on 10th yet which is too bad. And Smith had a some really nice powdery snow skiers right that was bumping up a bit. Lines were kinda longer than I'm used to. I also heard that they started parking folks on the lower lot at some point, which is unheard of at night. I go there at 6 and parked in row 10, so that means a bunch showed up kinda late. I'll also note that service in the Black Diamond has been pretty bad this year. It takes for ever to get beer and food and stuff is getting forgotten and not showing up all the time.

Monday night they were parking people in Lot 3... Last night, I managed to get a spot in row 2 at about 4:45, hung around until about 7:45, lines were a lot better than on Monday, and the snow was pretty good, some patches of not so good (see my post above)... but a good night all things considered.

-w