Mt Snow 1/6/08

[Dr Skimeister]

Date(s) Skied: 1/6/08

Resort or Ski Area: Mt Snow, VT

Conditions: Packed Powder, Groomed Powder, some pushed-around natural cover

Trip Report: Started off the day in Carinthia. Seeing the summit enveloped in a cloud, I chose to stay on the lower part of the mountain early. Lapped Nitro and Titanium a few times. Nice, carvable snow. And...much to my surprise, very few people. I was expecting big crowds with today being "Pay Your Age Day", where up to 16 years old a lift ticket was as much as your age.

Eventually ventured over to the Main mountain, and seeing there was still clouds up top decided to ride the Canyon Express chair. Again, nice snow on Snowdance. One More Time had a few almost bare spots, but nothing too unusual for this natural cover/not groomed trail. Always on of my favorites at Mt. Snow.

Next was a few rides on the Ego Alley chair. Link to Sundance to Drop and a finish on Yard Sale was the run of the day. The bumps on Yard Sale were pretty solid but navigable. This area of the mountain is one I rarely have skied in 20+ years of skiing at Mt. Snow. The "newness" of of it may have made it that much better.

Finally decided to test the foggy summit. Visibility couldn't have been more than 50 feet. I figured I'd just try to follow the treeline on skiers left along Deer Run, hoping to work my way towards Ridge, having been told by a fellow lift rider that it skied nice. Next thing I knew, I was on South Bowl. The fog lessened as I came down the trail, and wound up doing that to Sundance and repeated the previous course to the base area.

A few more laps on the Canyon chair and it looked like the summit was starting to clear. Rode up and made my way to another of my favorites, Uncles. Another natural cover trail that seemed like it hadn't been skied much since last weekend's snow fall.

Worked my way back to Carinthia, and decided to ride the slow slow double chair (Heavy Metal?). I realized the chair accessed the Carinthia terrain park and was entertained by the "dude" I rode the chair with. I wound up skiing another trail that if I have skied it, it was so long ago to be but a faint memory, Narrow Gauge. Fun trail-natural cover, narrow trail with some soft bumps/pushed around snow that is immediately under the Narrow Gauge chair.

All in all a very good day at Mt. Snow.

 

[RISkier]

We ended up going to Mt. Snow that day as well. Our first visit. We were supposed to meet folks at the Carinthia main lift but got a bit lost going in and started at the Main lodge. Not nearly as busy as I had anticipated. Our first run was off the main express lift trying to ski to Carinthia. We started on a green from the summit that required a pretty good up hill climb. The went down Titanium to the lift. Our friends know the mountain well and took us all over. Don't really know what trails but we skied in all the areas. We were glad to be with folks who knew the mountain cause visibility on the summit really was poor and I think it could have been a tough day trying to figure out where you were and where you were going. We did finish the day riding the Canyon Express and cruising a couple of the blues in that area. Don't recall hitting any ice or scraped up stuff anywhere. Lots of soft snow. Cover on some trails was a bit thin and they could use more snow. Overall, a really fun day.

 

[Euler]

Good Day

I spent a few hours at Mt. Snow on Sunday 1/6 as well. Other than the fog at the summit, the mountain was skiing great. Soft, carvable snow everywhere. Uncles, Big Dipper, and other natural trails were showing some bare spots, but not hard to ski around. Snow making trails all had superb snow. The mountain was spinning every single lift which made the crowding seem less. With the hero snow I hit Bear trap for a couple laps and had a good time. It was my first day skiing without the kids, so my legs gave out pretty quickly going at an adult pace!

 

[reefer]

Was there Saturday with my friend Chris, 8:00-4:00. Stayed in the woods most of the day. Plenty of snow on all the trails. JAWS was GROOMED - sacrilegious, but what a base it has for the rest of the year! Challenger and Olympic were not groomed and were skiing very tough. Chute and free fall were in great shape. PDF volkswagon bumps - tough. All woods (we did them all at least twice) had plenty of snow, the most we found was in Fantastics. They were pretty bumped up in places! Bear Trap was pretty skied off bumps but we got a couple decent laps on it. Bottom line - if you can make it out tomorrow (Tuesday), you would have a fantastic day at Mt. Snow! (or anywhere else I guess for that matter). Couple low quality pics........

 

[LineSki15]

I was there on Saturday as well. All in all a great day. Some nice carvable snow in spots, with some spots having heavy manmade/natural snow that was hard to ski. The north face skiied great in the morning, it was my first time at Mt. Snow since they added the north face (I know it's been a loong time) and I was pretty satisfied with the trails overthere and the lift lines were small, as opposed to the grand summit express chair that had a 10-15 minute wait.
good times though!

 

[BeanoNYC]

Thanks for the report. Do you see an advantage to starting over at Carinthia?

 

[Dr Skimeister]

Thanks for the report. Do you see an advantage to starting over at Carinthia?

Smaller crowds, better chance of close parking, sanity......Other than that, no.

 

[drjeff]

Was there Saturday with my friend Chris, 8:00-4:00. Stayed in the woods most of the day. Plenty of snow on all the trails. JAWS was GROOMED - sacrilegious, but what a base it has for the rest of the year! Challenger and Olympic were not groomed and were skiing very tough. Chute and free fall were in great shape. PDF volkswagon bumps - tough. All woods (we did them all at least twice) had plenty of snow, the most we found was in Fantastics. They were pretty bumped up in places! Bear Trap was pretty skied off bumps but we got a couple decent laps on it. Bottom line - if you can make it out tomorrow (Tuesday), you would have a fantastic day at Mt. Snow! (or anywhere else I guess for that matter). Couple low quality pics........

Jaws will need some help from mother nature after the thaw. While Monday it was still relatively groomed (kind of fun though in a weird way ripping big 'ol GS turns down that double falline jewel all weekend), the temps in the 40's were taking it's toll, and the soft sweet bumps of PDF had unfortunately overnight turned into sticky oatmeal like consistancy everywhere but in the troughs

Now problems though, as long as mother nature gets back to normal within a week, what's in the woods will serve as a great, deep base with hopefully more foot + storms coming soon!

BTW, I agree that the trees on saturday were GREAT! I was having a blast all day cycling from tree area to tree area, but kept ending up in Sap Tapper! Skier's right on the lower 2 headwalls was really, really sweet!

 

[rachelv]

Stayed in the woods most of the day. ... All woods (we did them all at least twice) had plenty of snow, the most we found was in Fantastics.

We were up this weekend as well and I spent all weekend in the trees. They were fantastic. Plenty of snow, tons of fun lines, in Claim Jumper in particular. Great weekend. I totally exhausted myself.

Lines were long-ish on the express chairs, but were well-organized and moved pretty quickly. The lines on the North Face were almost non-existent -- what's up with that? Last season it used to get so crazy back there.

A great weekend overall, absolutely no complaints.

 

[billski]

We were up this weekend as well and I spent all weekend in the trees. They were fantastic. Plenty of snow, tons of fun lines, in Claim Jumper in particular. Great weekend. I totally exhausted myself.

Lines were long-ish on the express chairs, but were well-organized and moved pretty quickly. The lines on the North Face were almost non-existent -- what's up with that? Last season it used to get so crazy back there.

A great weekend overall, absolutely no complaints.

I've noticed that sometimes it's actually more breezy there than on the front (even though in general it's not.) When we were there they last week they were making lots of snow and it was blasting into the chairs. Not fun. Perhaps it's got a bad rep this year. Worst line I had on the HSQ was five minutes on 12/31. I love the woods on busy days...

 

[Newpylong]

If they have both chairs spinning on the North Face its usually ski right on... love it.

 

[BeanoNYC]

Smaller crowds, better chance of close parking, sanity......Other than that, no.

I've been contemplating doing that for now on. I like that lodge.

 

[drjeff]

We were up this weekend as well and I spent all weekend in the trees. They were fantastic. Plenty of snow, tons of fun lines, in Claim Jumper in particular. Great weekend. I totally exhausted myself.

Lines were long-ish on the express chairs, but were well-organized and moved pretty quickly. The lines on the North Face were almost non-existent -- what's up with that? Last season it used to get so crazy back there.

A great weekend overall, absolutely no complaints.

ALOT of the better line situation for the lifts this year I'm sure has to do with the fact that the management at Mount Snow has made the GREAT descision this year to spin the accessory lifts (Sundance, Ego, Sunbrook, and BOTH northface lifts) from BEFORE the crowds get on the hill as opposed to last year when they waited for lines to form and people to get "locked" into an area of the mountain before spinning those lifts. Now, with most every lift spinning by the time a majority of folks get on the hill people are free to go where the want to and crowd dispersion has been better, even though they've had more folks on the hill. Kudo's to management for that descision!

 

[Euler]

Carinthia

Thanks for the report. Do you see an advantage to starting over at Carinthia?

I will only park in the Main Base Area if I arrive before first chair. Otherwise, Carinthia seems to be a much lower stress way to get on the mountain. Unfortunately, the lodge itself at Carinthia is a bit dank, so I don't spend much time inside the lodge.

Carinthia is a nice pod to ski in, esp now that the Heavy Metal double is always running - it's easy to do laps on Narrow Gauge and Stuggers Chute and never wait in a line.