Date(s) Skied: Saturday, January 8th, 2011
Resort or Ski Area: Pico Mountain
Conditions: 5-6 inches of fresh on top of granular and hardpack man made surfaces.
Trip Report:
No photos as I forgot to charge my camera battery after Friday at Pats. Not sure if others have issues with their camera batteries draining quick in the cold, but mine certainly does. I hit Pat's on Friday with a full charge, snapped about 12 photos and when I pulled it out at Pico it was dead.
Anyways..........
The 6 inches of snow of fresh on Saturday turned it into a much better day than expected. Pico is not tied into Killington's snowmaking system, so their capabilities are pretty limited. They only had about 30% of their terrain open via snowmaking. Most of the mountain was out of play including my favorite areas: A Slope, the Outback terrain Pod, Upper Giant Killer down to Brich Glade and Summit Glade. I did check out a bit of 'reserved' terrain on lower Sunset 71, but the nights storm wasn't enough to make me want to explore more. The terrain is simply too rocky to ski well with a 2 inch crust base and 6 inches of fresh on top.
So, the day was spent lapping the 3 upper mountain trails that were open; Pike, Upper KA, 49er. For most of the day it was skiing on cut up 6 inches of fresh on top of a Frozen Granular base. Only the middle third of Upper Pike was covered with snowmaking base, both sides just the 6 inches on top of crust. Upper KA was wall to wall coverage, had a few bumps in the middle of it. That trail is one of my favorite classic narrowish New England trails. You throw that trail on pretty much any well known mountain and it would get talked about a lot. 49er was full coverage as well and definitely the most crowded run on the mountain being the only intermediate trail from the summit.
The best snow was definitely on middle Pike skiers right. It was all natural on that side of the trail, but because it is low angle, there wasn't as much wind scouring and the base was deep to just bomb out in the cut up powder. It was nice that there's a traverse over from Upper KA and 49er to hit this every run.
Only complaint I have for the day was the B - slope trail being reserved for race practice. As this was the only trail open off that triple, they had not only their own private trail, but their own lift reserved for them. Now, almost every day I've skied this season, I've encountered trails reserved for racing programs and closed to the public. I did on Friday at Pats Peak, I did on Sunday at Okemo. I'm cool with it. However, in the case of Pico on Saturday, it's January 8th, you have 30% of your terrain open, that one extra trail and lift would've essentially added 25% more terrain variety for the intermediate an up skier. Pico is owned by Killington. The right decision would've been to bus the Pico race program up to Killington for the day and open up B slope for the regular crowd.
There were areas of awesome turns on Saturday, but unfortunately so much of the terrain at Pico was closed due to lack of snowmaking. I love the place, but it's not somewhere that will get much consideration unless I know there's been a lot of recent natural snow. Kind of sad really. My home mountain Ragged kinda sucks at making snow. Pico is worse.
Resort or Ski Area: Pico Mountain
Conditions: 5-6 inches of fresh on top of granular and hardpack man made surfaces.
Trip Report:
No photos as I forgot to charge my camera battery after Friday at Pats. Not sure if others have issues with their camera batteries draining quick in the cold, but mine certainly does. I hit Pat's on Friday with a full charge, snapped about 12 photos and when I pulled it out at Pico it was dead.
Anyways..........
The 6 inches of snow of fresh on Saturday turned it into a much better day than expected. Pico is not tied into Killington's snowmaking system, so their capabilities are pretty limited. They only had about 30% of their terrain open via snowmaking. Most of the mountain was out of play including my favorite areas: A Slope, the Outback terrain Pod, Upper Giant Killer down to Brich Glade and Summit Glade. I did check out a bit of 'reserved' terrain on lower Sunset 71, but the nights storm wasn't enough to make me want to explore more. The terrain is simply too rocky to ski well with a 2 inch crust base and 6 inches of fresh on top.
So, the day was spent lapping the 3 upper mountain trails that were open; Pike, Upper KA, 49er. For most of the day it was skiing on cut up 6 inches of fresh on top of a Frozen Granular base. Only the middle third of Upper Pike was covered with snowmaking base, both sides just the 6 inches on top of crust. Upper KA was wall to wall coverage, had a few bumps in the middle of it. That trail is one of my favorite classic narrowish New England trails. You throw that trail on pretty much any well known mountain and it would get talked about a lot. 49er was full coverage as well and definitely the most crowded run on the mountain being the only intermediate trail from the summit.
The best snow was definitely on middle Pike skiers right. It was all natural on that side of the trail, but because it is low angle, there wasn't as much wind scouring and the base was deep to just bomb out in the cut up powder. It was nice that there's a traverse over from Upper KA and 49er to hit this every run.
Only complaint I have for the day was the B - slope trail being reserved for race practice. As this was the only trail open off that triple, they had not only their own private trail, but their own lift reserved for them. Now, almost every day I've skied this season, I've encountered trails reserved for racing programs and closed to the public. I did on Friday at Pats Peak, I did on Sunday at Okemo. I'm cool with it. However, in the case of Pico on Saturday, it's January 8th, you have 30% of your terrain open, that one extra trail and lift would've essentially added 25% more terrain variety for the intermediate an up skier. Pico is owned by Killington. The right decision would've been to bus the Pico race program up to Killington for the day and open up B slope for the regular crowd.
There were areas of awesome turns on Saturday, but unfortunately so much of the terrain at Pico was closed due to lack of snowmaking. I love the place, but it's not somewhere that will get much consideration unless I know there's been a lot of recent natural snow. Kind of sad really. My home mountain Ragged kinda sucks at making snow. Pico is worse.
At least they got Upper KA going. 
