Berkshire East - AlpineZone "South" Gathering - 2/20/2005

[Greg]

Date(s) Skied: Sunday, February 20, 2005, 9:15 AM - 3:15 PM

Resort or Ski Area: Berkshire East, Charlemont, Massachusetts

Conditions: Loose granular, some hardpack. Very firm snow on "natural" trails.

Trip Report: Six AZ regulars and a friend of skijay met up at the Beast for this year's AlpineZone "South" Gathering on Sunday. Those attending including myself, ChileMass, thetrailboss, riverc0il, bvibert, skijay and skijay's friend, Frank. We got started shortly after 9 AM. There was a race on Competition most of the day that pretty much eliminated that from the trail options. We started down Big Chief which had some nice groomed LSGR. Second run was down Flying Cloud which had similar conditions. We were a bit disappointed that the supposedly open "Natural" trails were actually marked with "Closed" signs. They weren't roped though so we did take one run down Minnie Dole which was in pretty poor shape. Extremely hard frozen snow. Today, with the 6+" falling would be the day to hit those trails...

So effectively the only runs available to us were Outback (flat), Exhibition and War Dance off the quad, and Big Chief and Flying Cloud from the summit. We concentrated on the latter two trails for the most part. The LSGR along skier's right of most of Big Chief was a lot of fun. The awesome company and weather made up for the limited terrain. It was great to ski with ChileMass, skijay and bvibert again. It was also great to meet and ski with thetrailboss, as well as finally meeting riverc0il who's been posting here since the early days.

Great skiing with you guys! Pics coming soon (I'm reinstalling the Gallery as we speak...).

 

[bvibert]

Yes, the conditions could have been better... but the good company and great weather made up for it! :beer: It was nice to ski with Greg again and meet the rest of the gang for the first time. I hope we can do it again sometime. Next time we need to get more people to go too!

 

[Greg]

Okay, all the pics are HERE. My favorites are:

thetrailboss on Flying Cloud


Air riverc0il!


8)

 

[bvibert]

I kinda like this one :

 

[riverc0il]

great meeting up with everyone yesterday! it's always fun putting faces to the names and as greg said, the company definitely made up for the lack of open terrain (seems like we were a day off in the planning as today's storm should open everything back up!). thanks to greg for arranging the meet up, hopefully we'll have a slightly larger crew at burke in two weeks.

nice pictures greg! i always have a hard time capturing action shots as my camera has an odd delay. what are the specs on your camera, btw? yesterday demonstrated it is past time for me to upgrade with my battery issues in addition to the fact that the few shots i got off were not captured for some odd reason. definitely new avatar material!

 

[Greg]

nice pictures greg! i always have a hard time capturing action shots as my camera has an odd delay. what are the specs on your camera, btw? yesterday demonstrated it is past time for me to upgrade with my battery issues in addition to the fact that the few shots i got off were not captured for some odd reason. definitely new avatar material!

It's an old Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P71 (3.2 Mega Pixels). It has served me well for the past few years. It is pretty small/light and uses rechargeable AA batteries which is handy. I turn off the flash while skiing as there's a 5-10 second delay to charge the flash (especially if it's cold) which can lead to many action shots being missed. For post-processing, I bring up the JPGs in Paint Shop Pro, adjust both the brightness/contrast up anywhere from 5-20% (fixes the white balance problem which is common when there's bright snow in the shot), resize down to 800x600 and apply the Sharpen adjustment. I've seen pretty decent results with this approach.

 

[ChileMass]

I had a great time yesterday - thanks again Greg! It was fun meeting riverc0il and bvibert, and I hope we can keep these get-togethers going.

The Beast is a terrific mid-sized hill. The terrain, although somewhat limited, has a lot of interesting steeps, and the overall vibe is very friendly.

Nice snow-cloud, bvibert!!!!

CM

 

[Greg]

The terrain, although somewhat limited, has a lot of interesting steeps...

The best terrain is some that you've never had the pleasure of skiing, CM. Trails like Lift Line, Jug, Minnie Dole (from the summit), UMASS, Grizzly, Blizzard Island and East Glades were all closed yesterday. Flying Cloud and Big Chief are great groomers (Cloud does bump up), but the best trails on the mountain are the "natural" ones that were closed yesterday. I'm drooling thinking about what it's like there today with the new snow.... :-?

 

[bvibert]

nice pictures greg! i always have a hard time capturing action shots as my camera has an odd delay. what are the specs on your camera, btw? yesterday demonstrated it is past time for me to upgrade with my battery issues in addition to the fact that the few shots i got off were not captured for some odd reason. definitely new avatar material!

I have the same problem with my new camera (Olympus Stylus 410). In most of the pics I got yesterday the subject was almost already out of the frame... I still love the camera though because its small and weather proof, so I don't have to worry about it too much. I just need to get used to using it...

I'll see if any of my pics came out good and post them up when I get home tonight.

 

[Greg]

I have the same problem with my new camera (Olympus Stylus 410). In most of the pics I got yesterday the subject was almost already out of the frame...

I should also mention that with the flash off, I can click a shot off every 3-5 seconds. The selected shots you see in the Gallery were the best of many shots I took yesterday...

 

[bvibert]

I should also mention that with the flash off, I can click a shot off every 3-5 seconds. The selected shots you see in the Gallery were the best of many shots I took yesterday...

Thats about what mine is, although the flash doesn't seem to make much of a difference in the time (at least in my very precise tests here in my office...). I guess I just needed to take more shots.

BTW, thanks for the new avatar Greg! :beer:

 

[TeleGrrrl]

Looks like you guys had a great time, despite the less than optimal conditions. Maybe next time I'll break out of the shell and join you.

I'm horrible at taking action shots ....and i usually ski poorly in front of any camera.

tg

 

[Vortex]

I kinda like this one :

Is there a body hidden under this one? Glad all had fun. I'll make the next trip.

 

[bvibert]

Is there a body hidden under this one? Glad all had fun. I'll make the next trip.

Yes, if you look at the larger version of the pic you can make out the silhouette of my head toward the right side of the cloud...

 

[Vortex]

Not to mention if you click on the picture there are notes :idea: . Sorry great picture

 

[thetrailboss]

What can I say? A great group of guys, some great sunshine, a nice mountain, and good conversation. I had an excellent time!

ChileMass is certainly quite a character and I hope that Rivercoil's plans to escape to Burke work out :wink:

In addition to what Greg said, in the afternoon we hit some nice powder/LG on the sides of the trails (mainly Big Chief). Though these lines were between 2 and 3 yards wide, the turns in them were SWEEEEEEETTTT!!! I also kept my reputation as a closer...took two more runs between 3:30 and 4pm on the west side checking out the outward bound (?) trail and later Katie's Run and War Dance which were decent. Was planning on taking it easy but I guess that meant getting off the slopes at 3:55 as opposed to 4pm :lol: .

As for Greg's mention of Powdah, I did make the drive to Pat's yesterday and enjoyed some boot deep powder on the sides of the trails (drool). Only went for a couple hours before the freezing fog (yuck) got to us (which made for interesting driving).

Hope to ski with you all soon!

 

[bvibert]

We were wondering what happened to you TB!

 

[thetrailboss]

We were wondering what happened to you TB!

Though you guys might have tried, you didn't scare me off :wink: