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Date Skied: 1/16/05
Resort or Ski Area: Pat's Peak
Conditions: Manmade Powder over Ice
Trip Report: This was an interesting day for us. The family woke up early on Sunday morning and we worked hard to get out with all of our gear by 7:45 (no easy task with young kids). We showed up at Pats Peak right around 8:45 and everything looked great; no lines, a partially filled main lot, and lots of snowmaking going on. Unfortunately, when we went to get out and unload our stuff we realized that my son left his ski jacket at home. :x
Well, being the persistent (OK, stubborn) one who really wanted to get out and ski, I decided that we should drive home, get my son's jacket, and go back. We did manage to do that, but it pushed us back to 11:00.
When we made it back, we wanted to try to ski later in the day but we had to wait until 12:20 when the "all day" lift tickets would be good past 4:00 PM. We decided to have an early lunch but it was a pain to wait.
So, when we finally made it out, we went on the J-Bar for a few quick runs and then we went on the Valley lifts. My 8-year old daughter (who had only started going on ski lifts on our last trip a few weeks ago) managed pretty well, but we did have a few incidents where my wife and I had a hard time getting off of the lift because we were watching out for her. In my wife's case, she didn't push off of the lift and it didn't stop until she was facing the other way, still sitting in the lift. She wasn't about to fall out, so no harm done...I just called out to her that she should ski down instead of riding the lift down. :lol:
The conditions in the Valley area were pretty good considering the weather just a few days ago. There was enough manmade snow on the sides but it was obviously icy underneath. I mainly stayed back from the rest of the family and tried to work on some gentle turns.
After around 3 - 4 runs, my son and I decided to go up to the summit. Hurricane, the trail under the triple, looked pretty good (I won't tell which side looked better either
) but it's still too steep for our abilities, so we did a run from the green trails (Breeze-Zephyr-Blast) and then worked out way up to the blues (East Wind, Duster). They were making snow on Breeze, and the conditions were decent. In addition, I enjoyed going down the larger bumps on Lower East Wind. One surprise was that there was enough snow in the Zephyr glades to ski through them, which my son really enjoys.
We went back to the Valley area for some more "family" runs, and then my son and I agreed to give going down Twister (a single black) a try. This was our first venture down a black diamond trail, and to say the least, it was interesting for us. Not only was the trail steeper than anything else we've tried, but the center and right sides of the trail were very icy. We traversed down the steep and just dug in where we had to. The good thing was that no one else was trying to go down the trail when we were on it, so we didn't end up cutting anyone off (maybe that's because the more experienced skiers knew better than to go on the trail).
After that interesting run, we took a break and then I spent about another hour chasing my kids down the trails in the Valley area. We then called it a day and went to the Meeting House Restaurant for some excellent brick oven pizza.
In all, it was a very good (albeit long) day. I was impressed with how well the conditions recovered from the previous week.
Resort or Ski Area: Pat's Peak
Conditions: Manmade Powder over Ice
Trip Report: This was an interesting day for us. The family woke up early on Sunday morning and we worked hard to get out with all of our gear by 7:45 (no easy task with young kids). We showed up at Pats Peak right around 8:45 and everything looked great; no lines, a partially filled main lot, and lots of snowmaking going on. Unfortunately, when we went to get out and unload our stuff we realized that my son left his ski jacket at home. :x
Well, being the persistent (OK, stubborn) one who really wanted to get out and ski, I decided that we should drive home, get my son's jacket, and go back. We did manage to do that, but it pushed us back to 11:00.
When we made it back, we wanted to try to ski later in the day but we had to wait until 12:20 when the "all day" lift tickets would be good past 4:00 PM. We decided to have an early lunch but it was a pain to wait.
So, when we finally made it out, we went on the J-Bar for a few quick runs and then we went on the Valley lifts. My 8-year old daughter (who had only started going on ski lifts on our last trip a few weeks ago) managed pretty well, but we did have a few incidents where my wife and I had a hard time getting off of the lift because we were watching out for her. In my wife's case, she didn't push off of the lift and it didn't stop until she was facing the other way, still sitting in the lift. She wasn't about to fall out, so no harm done...I just called out to her that she should ski down instead of riding the lift down. :lol:
The conditions in the Valley area were pretty good considering the weather just a few days ago. There was enough manmade snow on the sides but it was obviously icy underneath. I mainly stayed back from the rest of the family and tried to work on some gentle turns.
After around 3 - 4 runs, my son and I decided to go up to the summit. Hurricane, the trail under the triple, looked pretty good (I won't tell which side looked better either
) but it's still too steep for our abilities, so we did a run from the green trails (Breeze-Zephyr-Blast) and then worked out way up to the blues (East Wind, Duster). They were making snow on Breeze, and the conditions were decent. In addition, I enjoyed going down the larger bumps on Lower East Wind. One surprise was that there was enough snow in the Zephyr glades to ski through them, which my son really enjoys.We went back to the Valley area for some more "family" runs, and then my son and I agreed to give going down Twister (a single black) a try. This was our first venture down a black diamond trail, and to say the least, it was interesting for us. Not only was the trail steeper than anything else we've tried, but the center and right sides of the trail were very icy. We traversed down the steep and just dug in where we had to
. The good thing was that no one else was trying to go down the trail when we were on it, so we didn't end up cutting anyone off (maybe that's because the more experienced skiers knew better than to go on the trail).After that interesting run, we took a break and then I spent about another hour chasing my kids down the trails in the Valley area. We then called it a day and went to the Meeting House Restaurant for some excellent brick oven pizza.
In all, it was a very good (albeit long) day. I was impressed with how well the conditions recovered from the previous week.
