Attitash -- Jan. 19th

[KevinF]

Met up with Cheese and some of his family at Attitash today. They had gotten about 2" overnight.

First couple runs were off the high-speed on the Attitash side. Even when we got on the lift at 8:45 or so there was already people-dodging going on, but we found a few spots that allowed us to open the throttle a bit. Cheese tried skiing some bumps off to the side at one point which he promptly announced was a mistake. Apparently frozen coral reef and dirt under 2" of fluff looks good and skis bad.

Rode the summit triple a bit and explored some of the trails off of there. There were random powder piles everywhere with patches in-between that ranged from carve-able to "bring the ice skates". Eventually we found one trail (right off of the Attitash-side high-speed) that was covered in fresh snow making whales and had some nice soft bumps on it. We skied that a couple times before breaking for lunch.

After lunch we headed over to the Bear Peak side. First run was ALugeRun; sorry, I mean it was called Illusion. There was some soft snow off to the very left side; the rest of this pretty-wide trail was blue you-could-see-through-it ice. Wow. After getting down that, we tried something else on the Bear Peak side that was just as bad, and after that, we skied back over to Attitash and lapped our bump run the rest of the day.

By this time, everybody had discovered this bump run had the only soft snow on the mountain. Between people picking their way down and the park rats jumping off of everything in sight and everybody else it was like trying to ski bumps through a demolition derby, but somehow we managed.

I quit around 3ish as my legs didn't have any bumps left in them. Cheese and fam kept going a bit longer. Despite the icy conditions on anything groomed it really was a fun day. Cheese can flat-out ski.

 

[deadheadskier]

Cheese tried skiing some bumps off to the side at one point which he promptly announced was a mistake. Apparently frozen coral reef and dirt under 2" of fluff looks good and skis bad.

I call those "Strip Club Bumps"

nice to look at, but you shouldn't tough em'

 

[Cheese]

Cheese can flat-out ski.

Thanks for the compliment Kevin! You've got great skills yourself and obviously the numerous clinics you've been through show in both your technique and ability to describe those techniques to others.

White Horse was definitely the trail of the day Saturday. The snow makers had nailed the air to water ratio so the snow was dry and soft. Soft moguls formed quickly on the sides and the whales were just a hoot to either carve up or launch from. It was one of those trails that probably won't be better all season so we just lucked out to catch it the day they dropped the rope.

We returned to Attitash/Bear Peak on Sunday since the wind in the forecast looked like it might shut down our original plan for Wildcat. Started the day at Bear Peak and went right to Illusion since we missed the good snow on it Saturday. The 2" of fresh we destroyed on Saturday churned in quite nicely and the corduroy they spread froze up perfectly over night. One turn was all we needed to know it was safe to cruise so off we went laying aggressive GS turns top to bottom. Since Avenger still wasn't open Illusion required repeating another 2 times before others caught on. We then moved over to Wandering Skis and Morning Star before heading over to Attitash. At Attitash we went for the summit and skied Idiots Option, Tim's Trauma, Tight Rope and Ptarmigan. Idiots had the best groom so we repeated that one more aggressively. White Horse still wasn't groomed but the dry bumps and whales had frozen up slightly. Not bad, just not as good as Saturday. Cathedral, Grandstand and Moat also groomed up nicely. Around 11am a snow squall moved in but the flakes went every which way but down. Shortly thereafter light immature snow started falling on the lower half of the resort for about an hour. That cleared out around 12 but by 2pm summit lifts went on wind hold and never reopened. We skied the lower mountain a while then returned to Bear Peak to finish the day on a couple more blue runs.

If you're headed to Attitash/Bear Peak this week you're in for good conditions. Everything open has enough coverage and grooms up nicely. The warmup from 2 weeks ago has created a solid base (white ice) so you can hang up the rock skis and tune up the slalom and GS boards. If you're looking for glades I'd wait for another 12-24" and even then bring the rock skis while exploring.