Date(s) Skied: Sunday, February 24th, 2008
Resort or Ski Area: Shawnee Peak, ME
Conditions: Packed Powder, Crust, Hardpack. BEAUTIFUL day, sunny, about 30 degrees no wind
Trip Report:
As I had skied Black Mountain yesterday, I decided to switch gear from my normal Sunday routine of going to Wildcat and keep it more local at Shawnee Peak. Shawnee has a great Sunday deal where if you bring your lift ticket from any mountain for the previous Saturday, they offer a discount ticket at $33.
After a long day yesterday, I was a little slower getting going today and arrived at the mountain at 9:30. The parking lot was about a third full, but even with that, the mountain looked pretty empty. Got my ticket and headed up the summit triple for a fast cruiser under the lift and then over to their race trail, the Headwall / East Slope. The cord was fantastic, real hero carving stuff that encouraged fast speeds and laying over deep trench carves. While Shawnee is only 1400 vert, the pitch is very consistent the whole way down with little to no run out on the main face. As yesterday I couldn't find any pitch to really carve, I decided to rip groomers for the first hour as there was minimal skier traffic on the hill, so I could really let em run.
Following five groomer runs mixed between the center of the Mountain and the East Mountain area, I was ready to mix things up as I had gotten my carve fix in. The bumps under the Sunnyside Triple on Cooleys looked decent though fairly crusty. This run had never been open in my previous trips to the mountain and is quite fun. It's not too steep, but reasonably narrow, about three to four bump lines across. There's also a couple of double fall line areas and few ledges to negotiate. Though the bumps were hard, they weren't bad at all and had been skied enough the day before to loosen up the snow. It was clear that beginners didn't ski the trail much as the bumps were much tighter than anywhere else on th mountain and the troughs not too scraped out. Still slightly sketchy that I had to dial back my speed some.
After Cooleys I decided to check out some other trails that had bumps on them and they were much more spread out, smaller and very slick in the 'troughs'. I put troughs in quotes as they really weren't troughs, just fifteen foot long flat spots between small bumps. One trail that had these little poles sticking out of the bumps, which I had never seen. I assume its a poor mans way of 'seeding'. Whatever it is, it doesn't work, unless with the type of skiers that skied and formed the bumps in there.
Next were some glades. Dungeons was open, which I had never skied before. The name suits the trail well as the woods are VERY dark. The trees are pretty tight and are all evergreen, so very little sunlight gets through. Where people had skied a lot was manageable ice bumps, the lesser traveled areas of the glade were a sketchy crust. I linked this into East Glade which was of the hard wood variety, much more spread out and better snow, though kinda boring for a glade. Dungeons would definitely be a lot of fun with good snow.
So, back to Cooleys. The warm sun had softened the bumps beautifully. They were far from hero bumps after a big dump or spring skiing bumps, but perfectly edgeable and the snow kept loosening with each run. I had found my home for the day and was charging them. Even got a few shout outs from the lifts. Guess somedays I still got some game. Today certainly felt like it. I was psyched to be able to ski the run top to bottom, about 800 vert, 6 times in a row and finish the lower half of the mountain bombing out big carves.
It was a killer day that I had to cut short at 1:30, but I logged a solid 16 or so runs without stopping. Now, time to finish up the reason I cut my day short. LAMB SHANKS - yum. Fanstastic dish, but it takes a solid 3.5 hours to do right. Gotta keep the girlfriend happy, so I can keep up my much improved pace in terms of quanity of times out on the hill.
Resort or Ski Area: Shawnee Peak, ME
Conditions: Packed Powder, Crust, Hardpack. BEAUTIFUL day, sunny, about 30 degrees no wind
Trip Report:
As I had skied Black Mountain yesterday, I decided to switch gear from my normal Sunday routine of going to Wildcat and keep it more local at Shawnee Peak. Shawnee has a great Sunday deal where if you bring your lift ticket from any mountain for the previous Saturday, they offer a discount ticket at $33.
After a long day yesterday, I was a little slower getting going today and arrived at the mountain at 9:30. The parking lot was about a third full, but even with that, the mountain looked pretty empty. Got my ticket and headed up the summit triple for a fast cruiser under the lift and then over to their race trail, the Headwall / East Slope. The cord was fantastic, real hero carving stuff that encouraged fast speeds and laying over deep trench carves. While Shawnee is only 1400 vert, the pitch is very consistent the whole way down with little to no run out on the main face. As yesterday I couldn't find any pitch to really carve, I decided to rip groomers for the first hour as there was minimal skier traffic on the hill, so I could really let em run.
Following five groomer runs mixed between the center of the Mountain and the East Mountain area, I was ready to mix things up as I had gotten my carve fix in. The bumps under the Sunnyside Triple on Cooleys looked decent though fairly crusty. This run had never been open in my previous trips to the mountain and is quite fun. It's not too steep, but reasonably narrow, about three to four bump lines across. There's also a couple of double fall line areas and few ledges to negotiate. Though the bumps were hard, they weren't bad at all and had been skied enough the day before to loosen up the snow. It was clear that beginners didn't ski the trail much as the bumps were much tighter than anywhere else on th mountain and the troughs not too scraped out. Still slightly sketchy that I had to dial back my speed some.
After Cooleys I decided to check out some other trails that had bumps on them and they were much more spread out, smaller and very slick in the 'troughs'. I put troughs in quotes as they really weren't troughs, just fifteen foot long flat spots between small bumps. One trail that had these little poles sticking out of the bumps, which I had never seen. I assume its a poor mans way of 'seeding'. Whatever it is, it doesn't work, unless with the type of skiers that skied and formed the bumps in there.
Next were some glades. Dungeons was open, which I had never skied before. The name suits the trail well as the woods are VERY dark. The trees are pretty tight and are all evergreen, so very little sunlight gets through. Where people had skied a lot was manageable ice bumps, the lesser traveled areas of the glade were a sketchy crust. I linked this into East Glade which was of the hard wood variety, much more spread out and better snow, though kinda boring for a glade. Dungeons would definitely be a lot of fun with good snow.
So, back to Cooleys. The warm sun had softened the bumps beautifully. They were far from hero bumps after a big dump or spring skiing bumps, but perfectly edgeable and the snow kept loosening with each run. I had found my home for the day and was charging them. Even got a few shout outs from the lifts. Guess somedays I still got some game. Today certainly felt like it. I was psyched to be able to ski the run top to bottom, about 800 vert, 6 times in a row and finish the lower half of the mountain bombing out big carves.
It was a killer day that I had to cut short at 1:30, but I logged a solid 16 or so runs without stopping. Now, time to finish up the reason I cut my day short. LAMB SHANKS - yum. Fanstastic dish, but it takes a solid 3.5 hours to do right. Gotta keep the girlfriend happy, so I can keep up my much improved pace in terms of quanity of times out on the hill.
