Whitey
Member
Had some R&SNE 2 for 1’s for Sugarbush so we decided to grab an extra day on our way back from Whiteface on Monday. Not exactly “on the way” but a little bit of a northern jog on our trip to catch Sugarbush on a mid-week day was too hard to resist. Looking at the weather forecast before the weekend we were expecting/hoping for some epic conditions. We were right.
Conditions: Powder, broken up powder, bumps. Snowing lightly all day. Probably got 4-6 overnight and an add'l 3-4 during the day. Temps in the 20’s. Crowds minimal because it was a Monday but I’d say that it was actually busier than you’d expect for a Monday. There were a lot of good skiers and boarders out that day, they now when to call in sick to work! Seemed like almost everyone on the mountain was an “advanced” skier. Which was good – created a vibe at the mountain of good skiers crushing an epic day which added to the overall experience.
Got there at about 10AM. Upper lot full, but no other lots had no more than a handful of vehicles. Hit lower Organgrinder first. It was good but we weren't looking for groomed runs so we headed up Heaven’s Gate lift – and we were rewarded. Ripcord was off the charts great. The bumps under the lift were covered in a thick layer of powder and once you gained some speed you could just surf through them. Lapped that run a couple of times & then hit Paradise. That was great too but did have some boney spots. Did some other runs and then headed to the Castlerock chair. Middle Earth was great and challenging but didn’t have the snow/bumps experience we were looking for. It seemed like a lot of the early crowd had hit M.E. and we were surprised that it was a little skied off. We then did Castlerock Run and that was good but was a groomer and we wanted bumps. One of the better runs was to do Upper Castlerock Run & then cut over on Toll Road to Lower Liftline. Upper was a little nasty but lower was fantastic with powder and bumps all over.
The ROTD was Sunrise off of the North Lynx Peak. It was untracked/lightly tracked powder even late in the day. My friend and I were shocked that we were basically the only ones skiing it but figured that with all of the great skiing people weren’t thinking North Lynx. Mistake on their part. Soft, boot deep powder blanketed the bumps and the trail just skied great. Bump lovers paradise. Both my friend and I have been working on our "ski the tops" bump technique and it really paid off on this day. There was so much snow on top of the bumps that it really made it fun to switch back & forth between zipper and tops as you skied down a run.
We didn’t do much glades skiing as my skiing friend isn’t that big of a glades person (odd, since he's a bump hound. But whatever). In addition to that – there was so much great skiing available on the runs, there just wasn’t as much incentive to go into the glades looking for snow. But you could see that many of the people who were there headed into the woods and there were skiers dropping into and out of glades areas all over the mountain. Literally everything on the mountain was in play.
All in all one the top 2-3 days of skiing I’ve had in my life. It was that good.
Paradise:
Middle Earth:
Sunrise:
Conditions: Powder, broken up powder, bumps. Snowing lightly all day. Probably got 4-6 overnight and an add'l 3-4 during the day. Temps in the 20’s. Crowds minimal because it was a Monday but I’d say that it was actually busier than you’d expect for a Monday. There were a lot of good skiers and boarders out that day, they now when to call in sick to work! Seemed like almost everyone on the mountain was an “advanced” skier. Which was good – created a vibe at the mountain of good skiers crushing an epic day which added to the overall experience.
Got there at about 10AM. Upper lot full, but no other lots had no more than a handful of vehicles. Hit lower Organgrinder first. It was good but we weren't looking for groomed runs so we headed up Heaven’s Gate lift – and we were rewarded. Ripcord was off the charts great. The bumps under the lift were covered in a thick layer of powder and once you gained some speed you could just surf through them. Lapped that run a couple of times & then hit Paradise. That was great too but did have some boney spots. Did some other runs and then headed to the Castlerock chair. Middle Earth was great and challenging but didn’t have the snow/bumps experience we were looking for. It seemed like a lot of the early crowd had hit M.E. and we were surprised that it was a little skied off. We then did Castlerock Run and that was good but was a groomer and we wanted bumps. One of the better runs was to do Upper Castlerock Run & then cut over on Toll Road to Lower Liftline. Upper was a little nasty but lower was fantastic with powder and bumps all over.
The ROTD was Sunrise off of the North Lynx Peak. It was untracked/lightly tracked powder even late in the day. My friend and I were shocked that we were basically the only ones skiing it but figured that with all of the great skiing people weren’t thinking North Lynx. Mistake on their part. Soft, boot deep powder blanketed the bumps and the trail just skied great. Bump lovers paradise. Both my friend and I have been working on our "ski the tops" bump technique and it really paid off on this day. There was so much snow on top of the bumps that it really made it fun to switch back & forth between zipper and tops as you skied down a run.
We didn’t do much glades skiing as my skiing friend isn’t that big of a glades person (odd, since he's a bump hound. But whatever). In addition to that – there was so much great skiing available on the runs, there just wasn’t as much incentive to go into the glades looking for snow. But you could see that many of the people who were there headed into the woods and there were skiers dropping into and out of glades areas all over the mountain. Literally everything on the mountain was in play.
All in all one the top 2-3 days of skiing I’ve had in my life. It was that good.
Paradise:
Middle Earth:
Sunrise:
