from_the_NEK
Active member
Hit the mtn at 10:00 Saturday morning. Burke is typically uncrowded. However, I was surprised just how uncrowded the mountain was on this Saturday of the holiday weekend :-o. I got on the lift and there was no one behind me for 5 chairs! Later on I talked with a guy who had come up the night before from Boston who said there were a lot of ski racks headed north last night on 93. But by the time he got past Cannon Mtn, he had teh road to himself. He had a big grin on his face a he said how sorry he was for all of the poor souls stuck in line at Loon 
.
As for the skiing yesterday, mostly only groomed terrain was open but what was open was skiing very well. The groomers had done a great job turning the hard pack into a noce fast edgable surface. I did 7 runs in two hours (roughly 11,550 feet of vert). Not bad for a holiday weekend.
I did sneak into an unmarked upper mountain spruce glade which as I suspected had good base but only 2 inches of snow over the hard pack made some of the steeper tight pitches a bit tricky. The more open hardwood glades on the east side would have been easier but they were closed. Wilderness was closed as well but I cut in from the side to see what the bumps were like. The coverage was still excellent. However the large bumps were very hard. There was plenty of snow in the troughs that made skiing down very nice. However, I can see why they kept it closed. 20 or 30 people would have cleaned out the fresh snow between bumps and made for a sketchy situation for beginner bumpers (something patrol doesn't need to deal with).
After exploring I stuck to mostly high speed runs which were great. Since there was hardly anyone on most of the trails, I was free to let'em rip. The only place a saw any carnage was on Lower Willoughby (three different groups picking up yard sales on my way down). That is rather rare for L Willoughby which usually has no one on it. I guess the fact that is 30% wider than it was last year makes it more attractive to beginners.
. As for the skiing yesterday, mostly only groomed terrain was open but what was open was skiing very well. The groomers had done a great job turning the hard pack into a noce fast edgable surface. I did 7 runs in two hours (roughly 11,550 feet of vert). Not bad for a holiday weekend.
I did sneak into an unmarked upper mountain spruce glade which as I suspected had good base but only 2 inches of snow over the hard pack made some of the steeper tight pitches a bit tricky. The more open hardwood glades on the east side would have been easier but they were closed. Wilderness was closed as well but I cut in from the side to see what the bumps were like. The coverage was still excellent. However the large bumps were very hard. There was plenty of snow in the troughs that made skiing down very nice. However, I can see why they kept it closed. 20 or 30 people would have cleaned out the fresh snow between bumps and made for a sketchy situation for beginner bumpers (something patrol doesn't need to deal with).
After exploring I stuck to mostly high speed runs which were great. Since there was hardly anyone on most of the trails, I was free to let'em rip. The only place a saw any carnage was on Lower Willoughby (three different groups picking up yard sales on my way down). That is rather rare for L Willoughby which usually has no one on it. I guess the fact that is 30% wider than it was last year makes it more attractive to beginners.
