Best Storm Skiing

[wintersyndrome]

Im a newbie AZ'r, and have yet to start a thread....so here goes, my apologies if this thread has been done before..ws

What was the best storm you have skied in?
was it the 1993 "Superstorm", the Blizzard of '96
or perhaps for those that can remmeber the blizzard of '78

lets keep it east coast, because, this aint the inner-mountain west.

My best storm skiing/riding of recent memory had to be two seasons ago,
(14-16 March '05) at The 'Bush Met up with friends living in Ludlow...drove up on friday night in about 4" of pack on RTE 100 rode all day on saturday with near white-out conditions, final storm totals were anywhere between 14-16" It just got better all day long.

Saturday evening the storm ended, leaving Sunday absolutely Blue-bird with tons of pow-stashes all over the place, paradise woods was unbelieveable best tree riding Ive had since Jay Peak '03, castlerock was unreal with huge soft bumps......so thats my tale...whats yours? ws

 

[SkiDog]

I think I remember a HUGE storm that hit KMART on New Years about 5 years ago...storm of '01? It basically just snowed for 3 days straight...

I remember '78 just wasnt skiing yet...was only like 7, didnt start til 9...

M

 

[Greg]

Great topic! You should start more. Probably my best day during a storm was ironically my first (and only so far ) visit to MRG, 2/10/2005:

We arrived to about 6" of fresh in the early afternoon. Close to 10"+ by the time we finished that day. The only thing that sucked was we only got about 3 hours of skiing in. The storm dumped a total of 18" overnight and we skied Sugarbush the next two days. Although most of the mountain was on wind hold, the next day at the Bush was awesome too:

As for Southern New England, the best storm I skied in was ironically last season.........in Connecticut.........in early December!

Brian might vaguely remember that day...

 

[Marc]

Damn. Nice pictures Greg.


The best storm I skied in was at Wachusett, believe it or not, in either Feb or March of '01. It was at night, and we were in about 1 foot of fresh. Thanks to my freshman roomie's four wheel drive Isuzu.

 

[Zand]

Last year at Smuggs... March 18-19, no big coastal storm or anything, but lake effect snow. It wasn't that heavy, but it didn't stop from Friday till we left Sunday afternoon. There was a good 1'+ by Sunday morning. Only woods skiing I got in all year. If you went 10 miles in any direction from the mountain, there was no snow whatsoever.

Usually if I'm home on a powder day, I take the opportunity to go snowmobiling instead. The trails crap up so quickly around here that it's nice to get some good riding in before that happens. I only got 2 snowmobiling days in last year... December 9th and the February blizzard (which was crap). In 2004-2005... there were only a few days in between Christmas and St. Patty's that i didn't go snowmobiling... most of them I was skiing.

 

[snowmaker4191]

Rode in a huge dump at killington last season, had to be the best riding for me in a while. snow was over a foot in places. deeper stashes to be had in the woods right off the trails. amazing day it alwayas helps to have freinds that know the mountaion well.

i realy need some powder....

 

[SkiDork]

Rode in a huge dump at killington last season, had to be the best riding for me in a while. snow was over a foot in places. deeper stashes to be had in the woods right off the trails. amazing day it alwayas helps to have freinds that know the mountaion well.

i realy need some powder....

what was the date?

 

[andyzee]

Two of my favorites have been:

Killington either 2001 or 2002, beginning of April. We got there at the tail end of a 30" storm, they didn't even have a chance to groom things out. Unfortunetly at that point me and Vee were new to skiing and didn't know how to ski the pow, but still had a great time.


Solitude March 2006 - Our first trip out west, up to that point we had gotten some smaller snow falls. On our last day we were going to go to Snowbird until we heard that Snowbird had recieved 5", while Solitude recieved 13". Well we went to Solitude and found some of the sweetest untouched snow around.

 

[riverc0il]

day of storm or day after storm? i guess it doesn't matter too much, lol. foot and a half at cannon either two or three years ago was pretty dang special. so much untracked lines and chutes and trees. gotta love vacation days mid-week day after a big dump. boot deep and pure blower, so so light.

 

[salida]

Ragged Mtn, 2001, 45 inches, that was a lot...
Numerous at Cannon around 2 ft.

Just got back from a 4ft week at Portillo. Face shots all week baby!!

 

[knuckledragger]

You want to talk about the year Jay got 550 inches every weekend was storm central. Or the time we were night riding at stowe and it was snowing so hard it was like fresh tracks every run. there were some lost hikers that night and they ran the lift an hour longer and left the lights on all night that night . Or the day it was snowing like crazy at stowe and the main mountain was packed so I went over to big spruce and froze my butt off with 6 other people, the snow was blowing hard over the top of spruce carrying snow from the smuggs side so heavey it was brutal that last section on thelift. Whirlaway was fresh every run fash shots all the way down. One of the coldest times and best times I have had at a ski area.

 

[ALLSKIING]

Last year at the Bush.

 

[Greg]

Last year at the Bush.

That's just retarded. Did you ski the Rock that day?

 

[salida]

Waist deep last week!

 

[riverc0il]

:smash: c'mon porter, out with the TR! this teasing crap isn't fair. i need some vicarious existance here.

 

[ALLSKIING]

That's just retarded. Did you ski the Rock that day?

A bit...It was closed 2 out of the 3 days that I was at the bush and I was trying a bunch of demos.... even with all that snow it was a bit thin so I only took 2 runs.

 

[snowmaker4191]

what was the date?

not sure exactly, it was about mid season though it didn't realy pile up much at the base but it did at the top

 

[Tin Woodsman]

Three days stick out.

First was back in March of 86' or 87' at Jay. Rained all night at the hotel, but had turned to snow by the time we got up 242 to the Inglenook Lodge. 3-5" new at the base, 20-24" up top. Stormed all day with heavy wind, so only the lower T-bar was open. We took it to the top then hiked up through the deepening snow to the top of Upper River Quai. tough stuff. Skied down in some of the deepest pow I've ever known, all by ourselves. Enjoyed it for the rest of the week pretty much alone too.

Second was out at Loveland. It was the "Storm of the Century" on the Front Range, with 86" in 5 days at Loveland and about 72" just over the divide at A-Basin with only 24" a few miles West at Copper. Skied is some snorkel deep stuff at Loveland. Jumped off a 20' cliff on day one that was 7' and soft on the landing by day 3. Good times.

Finally, the second of two bigb\ombs hit VT in early December of 2002 or 2003 I believe. I stuck around on Sunday night b/c I knew it was going to be a whopper while my friends drove home. Suckers. Headed out to MRG and rode in the deep and getting deeper all day.

Though I guess there was that other time at Aspen when all the rich tourons ran for their hot tubs and condos, leaving the mountain for the real skiers.

 

[Marc]

:smash: c'mon porter, out with the TR! this teasing crap isn't fair. i need some vicarious existance here.

I concur. You're giving us all blue balls.

 

[JimG.]

Waist deep last week!

That looks like one of the lines I skied off the high traverse in Portillo.