Gunstock - 3/7/10

[speden]

Conditions: pretty sweet - sunny, warm, soft snow

Kicked around going to Sunapee, Ragged, or Gunstock today, and ended up going to Gunstock. Figured Sunapee would be more crowded, and maybe the grooming at Ragged wouldn't be quite as good.

The snow was really nice up until around 12:30'ish, when it started to get a little grabby and slushy. The base is holding up real well at Gunstock, so it was a couple inches of loose granular over hardpack when I hit the trails at 8:30. I couldn't stick a pole in the hardpack, but the surface skied great.

I warmed up off the Pistol triple (which opened a little earlier than advertised), while everyone else lined up at the HSQ. Everything was good with just a hint of frozen granular on Out of Sight, since the sun hadn't hit it yet. Pretty much the whole mountain was covered with soft snow. Really couldn't find a trail that didn't ski well.

The parking lot filled up quickly, but things never really felt crowded, with no real lines other than at the HSQ, and even that had no line for singles. All in all a real nice day at Gunstock.

Parallax Glades - soft surface and pretty flat bumps

Start of Out of Sight, probably my favorite trail off the Pistol triple

I think this is probably somewhere on Trigger

Here's the line at the Panorama HSQ. Note the singles line on the left is empty. Gunstock seems to be popular with families, so there are not a lot of solo skiers there. That was good for me.

Here's a panorama taken from Flintlock

This is probably near the end of Flintlock Extension. The black trails (other than the race trails) don't seem to get a lot of traffic at Gunstock, so the hardpack stayed buried while I was there.

There was a slalom race on the Tiger Steeps.

After lunch it was getting t-shirt weather warm. Even noticed some girls showing some cleavage (not shown!), so you know it was getting hot. Well I hope it doesn't stay this warm or else the base will start to thaw.

 

[Bostonian]

Great pics, I love gunstock personally. My parents have a small ski chalet not too far from there (being completely renovated), but only been to G-Stock once this winter. Great photos too! nothing like skiing down from the top with Winnipesaukee right in front of you!

 

[speden]

Yeah, I'm starting to warm up to Gunstock. I've only been there a few times, but they do have some nice trails from the top. Recoil is pretty good, and so is Trigger. I didn't try Hot Shot yet, but will do that the next time I go. There are some trails that have some flat spots, but nothing too bad.

I guess they are run by the county, so maybe that's why the place has sort of a state park vibe rather than a corporate feel.

I'm curious to see how long they stay open this season. I was on the lift with an instructor there and he said the snowmaking has really improved at Gunstock over the last couple of years, and that's why they have such a deep base. As long as the nights stay cool it should hold out for quite a while.