Jisch
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- Dec 15, 2008
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Date(s) Skied: 1/8/10
Resort or Ski Area: Magic Mountain, VT
Conditions: Packed powder, powder and very little ice (almost not worth mentioning the ice).
Me: I am by and large a recreational skier, I average 6-8 alpine ski trips per winter, I consider myself to be an advanced intermediate skier. I don't mind skiing over my head in the hopes that I will learn (sometimes I learn that I shouldn't ski over my head :grin
. Not much of a bump skier (this is AZ afterall). I have never skied Magic before. In High School I would probably log 20-30 days on the snow in a winter, so most of my experience is decades old. My son has been skiing about 3 years and has somehow managed to learn very quickly and he hangs with me without exception. By the end of most of our days of skiing I can't keep up to him :angry:.
Trip Report: We got to the parking lot about 9:05 we were the fourth car in the lot, which was a bit surprising. I have read that Magic is normally pretty empty, but I didn't expect it to be THAT empty. Conditions were perhaps the best I've skied since I got back into alpine about 3 years ago. 80% of what I skied was packed powder, 18% boot depth powder and the rest either hardpack or ice (that's 2% for those with math issues). The temps were probably in the low 20's with zero wind until about 2:30 or so when the wind picked up and even then it was manageable. It snowed lightly to moderately all day, I would think the hill picked up an inch or two, though my car had just a dusting on it in the lot at the end of the day.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Magic after all the over the top reviews I've read here and other boards, never mind the "save Magic" stuff. We started off skiing a groomed intermediate slope as this was our first time out this year, I have to say I was a bit disappointed, I mean it skied ok, but it wasn't like skiing a groomer at Okemo or Snow where its like flying down a cloud. I immediately regretted not just driving the extra 10 minutes to Bromley.
Our second trip down the mountain we took Trip (black diamond) and then I started to get the picture. This place is a bit rough around the edges, and I mean that in the best possible way. We explored pretty much the whole mountain and found some unbelievable skiing - we found two great routes down - Enchanted Forest/Trick/Wand/Carumba/Lower Red Line - Great conditions with mostly packed powder and a bit of powder on skiers right as you got towards the bottom of the mountain. The other route we did often was Upper Wizard/Broomstick/Heart of Magician/Lower Magician - Soft powder top to bottom (pretty much). With a few minor exceptions it didn't get tracked out at all during the day.
We tried out a few double blacks, once again these are not like double blacks at Snow or Okemo - I'll admit to side slipping a bit of each of those trails we skied - we peered over the edge of Magician and just shook our heads... I'm not sure I'll ever feel comfortable skiing a slope like that. We skied the Hallows (glades) and the snow had a breakable crust underneath, which made a difficult area (for me) even more difficult. It ended up being some tough love getting out of there!
Overall the place was deserted, I don't think we shared a trail with anyone all day. We saw a few people at the top of the lift, but really that was about it. Maybe 25-50 people there? There's no way they broke even running the lifts today!
All in all a really great day of skiing, surely the awesome conditions didn't hurt, but Magic definitely delivered! I'll put some of my thoughts on the Magic conundrum in one of the other threads.
Sorry, no pics, it was pretty cloudy all day and I didn't bother pulling the camera out.
John
Resort or Ski Area: Magic Mountain, VT
Conditions: Packed powder, powder and very little ice (almost not worth mentioning the ice).
Me: I am by and large a recreational skier, I average 6-8 alpine ski trips per winter, I consider myself to be an advanced intermediate skier. I don't mind skiing over my head in the hopes that I will learn (sometimes I learn that I shouldn't ski over my head :grin
. Not much of a bump skier (this is AZ afterall). I have never skied Magic before. In High School I would probably log 20-30 days on the snow in a winter, so most of my experience is decades old. My son has been skiing about 3 years and has somehow managed to learn very quickly and he hangs with me without exception. By the end of most of our days of skiing I can't keep up to him :angry:. Trip Report: We got to the parking lot about 9:05 we were the fourth car in the lot, which was a bit surprising. I have read that Magic is normally pretty empty, but I didn't expect it to be THAT empty. Conditions were perhaps the best I've skied since I got back into alpine about 3 years ago. 80% of what I skied was packed powder, 18% boot depth powder and the rest either hardpack or ice (that's 2% for those with math issues). The temps were probably in the low 20's with zero wind until about 2:30 or so when the wind picked up and even then it was manageable. It snowed lightly to moderately all day, I would think the hill picked up an inch or two, though my car had just a dusting on it in the lot at the end of the day.
I wasn't sure what to expect from Magic after all the over the top reviews I've read here and other boards, never mind the "save Magic" stuff. We started off skiing a groomed intermediate slope as this was our first time out this year, I have to say I was a bit disappointed, I mean it skied ok, but it wasn't like skiing a groomer at Okemo or Snow where its like flying down a cloud. I immediately regretted not just driving the extra 10 minutes to Bromley.
Our second trip down the mountain we took Trip (black diamond) and then I started to get the picture. This place is a bit rough around the edges, and I mean that in the best possible way. We explored pretty much the whole mountain and found some unbelievable skiing - we found two great routes down - Enchanted Forest/Trick/Wand/Carumba/Lower Red Line - Great conditions with mostly packed powder and a bit of powder on skiers right as you got towards the bottom of the mountain. The other route we did often was Upper Wizard/Broomstick/Heart of Magician/Lower Magician - Soft powder top to bottom (pretty much). With a few minor exceptions it didn't get tracked out at all during the day.
We tried out a few double blacks, once again these are not like double blacks at Snow or Okemo - I'll admit to side slipping a bit of each of those trails we skied - we peered over the edge of Magician and just shook our heads... I'm not sure I'll ever feel comfortable skiing a slope like that. We skied the Hallows (glades) and the snow had a breakable crust underneath, which made a difficult area (for me) even more difficult. It ended up being some tough love getting out of there!
Overall the place was deserted, I don't think we shared a trail with anyone all day. We saw a few people at the top of the lift, but really that was about it. Maybe 25-50 people there? There's no way they broke even running the lifts today!
All in all a really great day of skiing, surely the awesome conditions didn't hurt, but Magic definitely delivered! I'll put some of my thoughts on the Magic conundrum in one of the other threads.
Sorry, no pics, it was pretty cloudy all day and I didn't bother pulling the camera out.
John
