Top 5 Runs of the Year

i am going out on the limb here, but despite over a month of prime skiing still left to be had and more than that if you are willing to hike, i think everyone's best runs of the year are likely behind them (unless you guys have a trip out west planned!). i am gonna make the call on my top five in bounds runs, which are more likely my 5-10 slots overall :wink:

no particular order:

1. Cannon March 10th was the second day after a huge powder dump but the first day afterwards that the Upper Mountain lifts were running. Boot deep in spots I can't mention, but Tramline and Kinsman tie for best runs that I can mention.

2. Cannon on March 3rd was my first time skiing tramline which I found to hold powder really well except in the crux moves! Most notably, the tree shot entrance is one of the best around.

3. Mad River Glen on January 22nd was nice packed powder with an epic descents down Fall Line and Lower Antelope.

4. All the trees at Burke on March 5th for the AZ Gathering.

5. Opening day at Cannon on December 4th hiking to the summit twice for VERY dry powder 3 boot buckles deep on Tramway.

honorable mention to mike's way at loon on march 27th and vista way at cannon on february 26th.

This looks fun

5. Nov 13th 1st day at Killington to start Season. Almost a holdiay for me snow was pretty good for so early.
4.March 2nd Attitash. 3 inches of new snow after six inches the day before. NH vacation week and Mountain Dew vertical challenge. Skied fresh soft snow everywhere no lines. I love mid week.
3.March 1st. I drove from Sunday River in mid afternoon on Monday home to get my family then drove to North Conway to beat the storm and skiied Tues at Cranmore. 6 inches of fresh snow to start snowed all day. My sons 1st real powder day and he got it has not been the same since.
2. Burke AZ outing March 5th. Wide open trails warm and no-one on them. Trail boss as tour guide. Charlie and rivercOil got me into the woods out of my comfort area. Really enjoyed the challenge.
1.Yet to come. Reggae weekend. Planning my favorite weekend in advance. :beer:

One trip to SR, one trip to Sugarloaf, and the rest at Wachusett. I don't think I can come up with 5; however...

2. Wachusett on Monday the day right after the big blizzard. It will never be better than that at Wawa and in spite of the crowds of kids I had a blast.

1. The weekend of Feb 12-13, right after Sunday River got a 25-30 inch dump. Did I ski well? Heck no, I didn't know how to deal with all that minimally-groomed powder. But it was still freakin' awesome and a major stepping point in my "learning year."

Oh, man. What a good thread and a lot of good options considering how :roll: the season has been at times, so here goes:

So far out:

5. The "Spring Day" at Sunday River (Wednesday of our Vaca): Blue skies, soft snow, good cover, and lots of fun. What more could I say?? 8)

4. Powder Day I at Sunday River. That Thursday we had boot deep freshies all day. I was hooting and hollaring the entire way

3. The AZ Day at Burke. Great to see that riverc0il and Bob enjoyed themselves...bluebird day at my old home mountain. Great folks, great fun, great skiing. Like I remember Burke being!

2. The MONSTER Powder Day II at Sunday River would have been number one had the wind died down...incredible! Knee deep powder!

1. March 12-13th Snow Storm at Pats left the place COVERED on Saturday night. Blue bird skies, warm sun, and lots of smiles made Sunday pure bliss. Skiing some of the former "OB" liftlines was really fun.

Cool thread idea. I'm surprised none of the runs at Berkshire East made your list, Steve... :wink:

Here's mine:

5: Twlight Zone, Magic Mountain, Vermont:

A great double-fall line trail through the trees. Tons of snow and soft bumps this day.

4: Sunrise, Sugarbush, Vermont:

Simply fantastic snow. 18" of fresh on a ton of manmade made for some fabulous bumps. The sun was out so the terrain had perfect light.

3: Antelope, Mad River Glen, Vermont:

First day at MRG and during a powder dump. How does it get any better than that? Antelope is an awesome run that twists and turns down the extreme skier's right side of the mountain. The hike-out at the bottom was kind of a drag though...

2: Triple Trouble, Loon Mountain, New Hampshire:

What can I say? Triple Trouble is my favorite run at Loon and during my visit in March, the trail was in the best shape I've ever seen it. I skied it 10 times in three days this season.

1: Middle Earth, Castlerock/Sugarbush, Vermont:

This was my first run ever down Castlerock so this was particularly special. Great natural snowcover. It was almost a rite of passage...

So 4 out of my top 5 runs were in Vermont this season and all but one were natural snow trails. I skied VT more this season than I have in the past few years and the quality of the skiing shows. I may have to amend this list after Reggae Fest at Sugarloaf this weekend since the expected skiing and weather conditions should be fantastic!

For me some of my best skiing was found on my trip to Sugarloaf in February. The weather and skiing surface changed nearly every day. I managed to get 5 powder days in this year in four different states.

Here are my best:

1) February 10th - Sugarloaf - 12-14" of untouched powder and first track on Boomauger and Stubs Glade.

2) February 11th - Sugarloaf - 24" of light powder and first tracks on Glancer, Windrow and again on Bomauger.

3) January 9th - Magic Mtn - 12" of powder and first tracks on Sorcerer.

4) March 27th - Bretton Woods - Beautiful spring conditions with 50F + weather and nice glade skiing.

5) March 28th - Atittash/Bear Peak - 3" of powder and my first powder skiing with my son.

Powder skiing was also found at Berkshire East with 6-8" of powder in March, and great glade skiing.

3/2/05-2 feet of POW at MRG; no trails, just woods.
3/1/05-1 foot of POW at MRG; a few trails like Fall Line and Paradise, mostly woods.
1/22-23/05-Hunter mtn.; Blizzard on Saturday, up to 2 feet POW on Sunday; trail 44 and Clair's were the place to be.
3/4-5/05-Sugarbush; super powder and packed powder conditions enjoyed with my whole family. 1st 2 days on skis for little James. Runs of these days were Liftline and Rumble, skied with my 2 oldest sons David and Peter; a few lower angle woods shots with the boys too.

You can kind of put these in any order you want, but 3/2 at MRG was truly epic.

My last five I took Sunday were pretty good...

1. my first time down an unnamed run near Stowe on President's Day weekend.

2. another first descent, making fresh tracks, down another unnamed run at Stowe on President's Day weekend.

3. a first decent down an unnamed run near a well-know "skills" resort, where only 3 tracks lay before me.

4. repeated lines through unnamed, untracked tree runs within the bounds of a ski area in the skills known for its "family atmosphere".

5. repeated runs through unnamed, virtually untracked tree runs within the bounds of another ski area in the skills also known for its "family atmosphere".

6. the full on, blue bird pow day at hunter in mid-feb 05 (or was it late Jan?) where most people could not get into tannersville til morning bc the thruway was closed. rode the dbl chair sooo many times that day.

7. ripping Dot Nebel on a powder day with Evil at our fav li'l mtn in the skills

Sorry, I could have listed a few more but since the list was Top 5, I'd better stop now... it was an odd snow year but man it finished off nicely. 8)

What I learned this year: you don't have to go out west to get fresh tracks and kick ass trees, you just need to know where to look. 8)

Top five runs of the season, eh...

5. Early March, Mount Snow : Had a bluebird day at Mount Snow, went over to beartrap and cranked up the iPod shuffle and ripped a zipper run down Beartrap. Had my knees punching me in the chest the whole time and managed to squeak out a 7 on one of the air bumps. It wasn't the greatest 7, no grab or anything abut I landed and picked it right up and pounded to the bottom. It is a good thing that Beartrap is so short because if it was any longer I would have lost it. I was running out of steam 80% of the way down and was looking forward to the liftride up. On my next run I tried the same thing and ate it on the bump majorly.

4. February, Sunday River : Got in an awesome day in the woods after a foot or so. It was a weekday so I managed to get early tracks in all my favorite off the map spots. In this one I managed to hit up a 13-15 foot dropper and air over some water. An awesome run.

3. Two Weekends Ago : Stratton for the Vermont Freeskiing Open. Did an amazing top to bottom run at Stratton over in Kidderbrook. Ripping down with huge GS turns, plenty of snow, sun in my face... Doesn't get better than that. We're talking REEEEEALLLLY wide GS turns with my elbows skinning the ground I was over that much.

2. 2nd Week of February, Mount Snow : We were getting one of the first 22+ dumps of the year on a Saturday night and most of NY and CT stayed home so they wouldn't get stuck. I managed to hitch a ride from the house I was staying at in the Valley with some guys that had snow chains on their truck. The mountain was empty, it was ripe for the picking. I skied from 8:15-4:15 without taking a single rest. I managed to choke down a couple power bars on a chairlift ride or two but that was the extent of my rest. I started exploring all over the mountain and found about a dozen secret stashes, was ripping apart the trees on Sunbrook and even did some exploring on the xc trail that goes over to Haystack. The greatest thing about the day was building a small lip along the backside of the halfpipe that is near the Carinthia lift and hucking myself into the 2+ foot deep powder drifts back there. I was putting on a show for people in the lift, throwing frontflips, misty flips, trying to land switch , spinning, etc. I was making bomb holes everywhere on the backside of that pipe! That has got to be the best run of that day.

1. First week of March : Secret stash at Mount Snow, near Ripcord after an amazing 24+ inch storm. These trees are gnarly, possibly the steepest and deepest lines I've found in quite some time. Just as steep as ripcord but full of 10-12 foot drops that end up in some of the skechiest landings ever. I was ripping with a buddy of mine and we sessioned these woods for 4 straight hours, taking yo-yo runs the entire morning until we just needed a break. In some of the landings the snow was up to my waist and then some. The landings were like cotton balls and I was skiing like a hero. This was a day that I wish I had my new camera on me, becuase nobody believes that Mount Snow has any terrain that steep and gnarly, and that full of drops and cliffs.

5 - Flying Cloud - Berkshire East. With the AZ group on a beautiful sunny day. bvibert creates temporary micro-climate snow squall with wipeout.

4 - War Dance - Nashoba. Bob R nearly kills an entire beginner class, then spends some quality time with the Ski Patrol.

3 - Meteor - Crotched Mt. My 8-year-old daughter moves beyond snowplow turns for the first time.

2 - Avalanche - Cannon. Not another person on the trail in blinding sunshine and almost perfect spring snow.

1 - Maxi - Mont Orford. My brother and I waited about 10 minutes for the Patrol to drop the rope while the groomers made corduroy on this incredibly steep, long trail. We were the 3rd and 4th skiers on it. Laid back into the hill and sliced out huge giant slalom turns in 6" of perfect eastern conditions. We were high-fiving strangers at the bottom.

ChileMass said:

5 - Flying Cloud - Berkshire East. With the AZ group on a beautiful sunny day. bvibert creates temporary micro-climate snow squall with wipeout.

Click to expand...

:lol:
Poor Brian - he ain't never gonna live this down...

Greg said:

ChileMass said:

5 - Flying Cloud - Berkshire East. With the AZ group on a beautiful sunny day. bvibert creates temporary micro-climate snow squall with wipeout.

Click to expand...

:lol:
Poor Brian - he ain't never gonna live this down...

Click to expand...

Shouldn't you be at the 'loaf by now, Chief?

ChileMass said:

4 - War Dance - Nashoba. Bob R nearly kills an entire beginner class, then spends some quality time with the Ski Patrol.

Click to expand...

Seems like Chilemass isn't going to let Bob R live this one down.

It also appears that like many fish stories, the fish gets bigger and bigger as well :roll:

thetrailboss said:

Shouldn't you be at the 'loaf by now, Chief?

Click to expand...

Heading to a buddy's house in NH tonight after work. Then we're up at 4 AM to make the final push to da Loaf tomorrow morning!

Greg said:

thetrailboss said:

Shouldn't you be at the 'loaf by now, Chief?

Click to expand...

Heading to a buddy's house in NH tonight after work. Then we're up at 4 AM to make the final push to da Loaf tomorrow morning!

Click to expand...

Well have fun and maybe I'll be passing you on the highway tomorrow on my way to ski-dom.

Greg said:

ChileMass said:

5 - Flying Cloud - Berkshire East. With the AZ group on a beautiful sunny day. bvibert creates temporary micro-climate snow squall with wipeout.

Click to expand...

:lol:
Poor Brian - he ain't never gonna live this down...

Click to expand...

I should have read the posts more closely, I missed that entirely. Might as well post the pic again:



I didn't really have any epic runs that stood out above the rest, they were all pretty darn good. The AZ days I attended are definately right up there though!

bvibert said:

Greg said:

ChileMass said:

5 - Flying Cloud - Berkshire East. With the AZ group on a beautiful sunny day. bvibert creates temporary micro-climate snow squall with wipeout.

Click to expand...

:lol:
Poor Brian - he ain't never gonna live this down...

Click to expand...

I should have read the posts more closely, I missed that entirely. Might as well post the pic again:



I didn't really have any epic runs that stood out above the rest, they were all pretty darn good. The AZ days I attended are definately right up there though!

Click to expand...

Hey, maybe you can give me an encore performance this weekend :wink: :beer:

you guys posting your best runs on unnamed trails aren't any fun. i coulda did five "xxxx trail at xxxx mountain" posts, but it's really not informative or sharing anything. was trying to stear this thread into charted terratory so everyone could play along

didnt have any good runs, all the powder days fell midweek and my dad wouldnt let me skip school...jk anyway i did have some really nice runs

5. Cannon at the end of the, last ride up the tram and i didnt see one person the whole run down, and there was only 5 people on the tram.

4. Almost untracked my first day at alta in 2-3 ft of fresh snow(even though everyone 100 yards i would stop and be totally out of breath)

3. Mount baldy at snowbird, hiking up and being able to see all the way down to SLC, then skiing powder.

2. Getting repelling practice at snowbird when you had to take off yours skis and kinda hold on to a rope and pull ur self down, then losing my ski and having to walk down the whole chute. (just kidding that was horrible)

Real #2 Skiing under the quad at wildcat then on to lynx half way down on crud and groomed snow on the day before the rain storm( dec. 23 i think)

1. Doing 3 untracked runs in the same glade(the glade next to kinds landing, dont konw what it is called) at sugarloaf, nice spread out trees and a good pitch, didnt have to slow down once i just went right through.