Hunter Mountain 12/27/12

[millerm277]

Date(s) Skied: 12/27/12

Resort or Ski Area: Hunter Mountain

Conditions: Powder/Packed Powder

Trip Report: Overall, the day was fantastic. ROTD was basically anything but Belt, all depended on what conditions you were looking for. Skied everything that was open, and then some.

Clairs, Racers, White Cloud and to a lesser extent 44/Westway were all heavily skied although closed. Didn't see many tracks on K27 or Annapurna. Lots of people in the trees and some hidden areas.

Gun Hill and Milky Way were open on natural, Gun Hill will only last another day at best without some snowmaking though.

No ice, only hardpack was small sections of Belt and Hellgate after 3PM.

Parking lots were quite full, but there were almost no buses that I saw. Crowd on the hill was surprisingly manageable. Less idiots than normal for a busy day (or maybe they were all in the lodge), singles line at the 6-pack was no more than a 30 sec wait all day. No lines on F or Z anytime. Felt like midweek as long as you were off of Belt, I think a lot of people couldn't handle 10" of snow and were very slow.

It was Demo Day, tested out some Dynastar Cham 87, 97, and 107s. Very impressed by both the 87 and 97, 107 felt like it needed deeper powder than was available at 2PM where I was willing to take them.

Mountain seemed to be running more smoothly than usual. Liftline was well managed at the 6-pack all day, the Demos were easy to get setup with, etc.

All in all, a good start to my 12-13' skiing at Hunter, outside of an accident on 87N south of Harriman that delayed me by 30min.

 

[TropicTundR]

1) Didn't hit Way Out? What's up with that? It was empty ALMOST everytime I got it 12/26.
2) Any word on the new glade trail on Hunter West?

 

[millerm277]

1) Didn't hit Way Out? What's up with that? It was empty ALMOST everytime I got it 12/26.
2) Any word on the new glade trail on Hunter West?

Way Out was excellent (Especially White Cloud>Way Out). I just hit everything and didn't want to list every run, so I figured I'd mention the things you couldn't tell from the trail report. Empty, great snow, nice soft powder bumps on various parts of the trail, just like almost every other trail on the mountain today, you really couldn't go wrong.

It's just the strip of woods between Clairs and Lower Taylors that everyone already skied anyway whenever there is snow. I think they put a sign up, wasn't really looking for it, I hadn't even looked at the map to notice that it's now "on-map" until you mentioned it.

 

[kingslug]

Drove up Wednesday night in the blizzard, made it to the thruway no prob..then it just stopped, 6 hours later I was at the Forrester across the street...slept inn a freezing cold room, heat wouldn't work. I woke up to a buried parking lot, everyone trying to dig out, I just throw it in 4 wheel and take off. Hit everything that was open, didn't poach anything as I just didn't want to wreck my bases after a 50 buck major tuneup. The moguls starting building quickly and pretty soon the whole place was bumped up. It wasn't too crowded as it was still storming and getting there had to still be rough. Made it to 3, then called it...back to the room which now had some heat..went over to The Last Chance for some food, then passed out. Saturday...the line of cars at 8am was all the way down the road...here come the hordes...everything was groomed except for a few areas but that would change as the Hunter Cloud was huge, the guns where going! Hit everything 900 times, made it to last chair, haven't done that in a while..met up with Jim G so I had to finish the day chasing him and the kids around. Wish I could have stayed but ...work...maybe hit it midweek.