Mount Snow 2/4

[Jisch]

I won't run through the gyrations I went through to plan a simple day trip to VT to ski, but suffice to say Magic, Bromley and Snow were all in play at some point on Thursday. If I got word that Magic's lifts were 100% going to run in time to get a Liftopia ticket I probably would have gone there. Long story short I ended up meeting some MTB friends at Snow since I had a pass.

I knew these guys were great skiers and was a bit intimidated, I'm an intermediate skier pretending I'm better than that. It turned (pun intended) out great. These guys are into making as many quick parallel turns as they can on whichever slope they were on. We skied the whole mountain and I really had a great time. It was awesome to follow these guys and see how they turned, I learned a lot, now if I just need to do more lift served to practice it! Most of the bumped up trails had soft bumps that were pretty comfortable for me, when the bumps get hard my lack of skills start to show :-D

Conditions were pretty damn good - packed powder everywhere. Some was very packed, but the ungroomed trails were loosely packed - very little if any untracked snow. I was kind of following along and we didn't hit any glades, which was a bit weird to me, but whatever. As the wind picked up in the afternoon, some of the stuff up top got blown off, but not much at all.

I heard on the radio on the way up (somehow missed this in watching the forecasts) that the wind was going to pick up in the afternoon. I washed my balaclava after the last trip up and it wasn't in my backpack! ARGH! Really it went from pretty windy in the morning to stupid windy in the afternoon. The north face was the place to be as the wind was not bad there at all. When the sun was out, it was downright comfortable.

By my last trip up the main chair they had people standing next to the chair as you got off, the wind pushed you back onto the chair, the unloading hill wasn't steep enough to counter the wind. If that kind of wind doesn't close the summit chair, I'm not sure what would.

All in all an excellent day on the boards.

 

[Glenn]

Sounds like you guys had a solid day. The wind can get pretty crazy there!

 

[bigbog]

At least the snowpack this year is terrific....
Sounds like some of the slightly warmer air trying to come up north, but the snowpack is holding surface temps....instead of our short, horrible 24hr thaws...of years passed. Can visualize the scene pretty easily = some of the winds around varying pitches of Katahdin last few years...when the 24hr warmer winds would mix = .

 

[billski]

I knew these guys were great skiers and was a bit intimidated,

I've observed that the best skiers are the most humble and the most patient with the skill-less (exhibit A: Me). After skiing with them, I usually feel more inspired than humbled.
Usually the folks that brag aren't as good as their talk.

 

[jaywbigred]

I won't run through the gyrations I went through to plan a simple day trip to VT to ski, but suffice to say Magic, Bromley and Snow were all in play at some point on Thursday. If I got word that Magic's lifts were 100% going to run in time to get a Liftopia ticket I probably would have gone there. Long story short I ended up meeting some MTB friends at Snow since I had a pass.

I knew these guys were great skiers and was a bit intimidated, I'm an intermediate skier pretending I'm better than that. It turned (pun intended) out great. These guys are into making as many quick parallel turns as they can on whichever slope they were on. We skied the whole mountain and I really had a great time. It was awesome to follow these guys and see how they turned, I learned a lot, now if I just need to do more lift served to practice it! Most of the bumped up trails had soft bumps that were pretty comfortable for me, when the bumps get hard my lack of skills start to show :-D

Conditions were pretty damn good - packed powder everywhere. Some was very packed, but the ungroomed trails were loosely packed - very little if any untracked snow. I was kind of following along and we didn't hit any glades, which was a bit weird to me, but whatever. As the wind picked up in the afternoon, some of the stuff up top got blown off, but not much at all.

I heard on the radio on the way up (somehow missed this in watching the forecasts) that the wind was going to pick up in the afternoon. I washed my balaclava after the last trip up and it wasn't in my backpack! ARGH! Really it went from pretty windy in the morning to stupid windy in the afternoon. The north face was the place to be as the wind was not bad there at all. When the sun was out, it was downright comfortable.

By my last trip up the main chair they had people standing next to the chair as you got off, the wind pushed you back onto the chair, the unloading hill wasn't steep enough to counter the wind. If that kind of wind doesn't close the summit chair, I'm not sure what would.

All in all an excellent day on the boards.

Interesting. We skied Mt. Snow yesterday too, (2/4) and we found the wind much, much worse in the morning. We skied 9:15 - 2:00, so maybe it got worse after 2. The mountain did ski great, however! Everything was in fantastic shape. I can't remember a bad run.

 

[Jisch]

The wind really picked up right after 2:00. The other three guys packed it in around 3:00, I hit up a few more runs, but had to retreat to the Canyon Express.