Ski Sundown 1/23/07 (night)

[bvibert]

Date(s) Skied: 1/23/07

Resort or Ski Area: sundown

Trip Report: Quick and dirty edition... I had to work tonight, but I managed to get out an hour early just so I could see if there were truly bumps being developed on the mountain. I got on the lift at 9:20pm so it was to be a short session. I knew I wouldn't have much time so I decided to...

What's that Greg and 2knees, you just want to know about the bumps?? Fine, I'll jump right to it... :roll:

The start of the bump field on skiers right of Exhibition


Looking up Nor'Easter


Unfortunately this is what the bumps on Nor'Easter looked like; Big, frozen, piles of death cookies.

I must say that I was simply amazed with the amount of bumps they made! From the Sundeck down through Nor'Easter with the groomed bail out to skier's left up to Temptor. I started out by attempting a few of the bumps in the upper section and quickly bailed the bumps were solid piles of death cookies and I got thrown all around. I'm no expert, but they looked pretty spaced apart too, maybe to make it easier for noobs like myself? I did notice, after I bailed, that a small section in the middle of the upper section had smooth bumps that weren't all chunky. I intended to hit those next time around, but next time around never came... not for Nor'Easter at least... I only looked down the lower section from the Temptor intersection and all I could see was VERY chunky looking piles, though they did look a little tighter spaced. From there I went down Temptor to the lift, completely forgetting about the bumps that were supposed to be on skier's right of Exhibition. I decided to head down Canyon next to get a look up at the bumps from the bottom of Nor'Easter. They looked about as expected so I snapped a few pics and went on my way intending to ski down to the lift and hit the upper section of the Nor'Easter bumps on the next run... I skied skier's left of the Canyon flats, which I almost never do and stopped at the top of Exhibition to the left by Temptor. I was quite surprised to see bumps across from me that I had completely missed! I headed over to those and actually managed to hold my own! That blew any thoughts I had of hitting Nor'Easter/Temptor again. I was hooked on these and I wouldn't be able to hit most of them Temptor! My last few runs were down Canyon, but I hit the bumps from the beginning the rest of the times. I looked like crap and I didn't hold much of a line, but I had fun! It helped that I felt much better than the only other people I saw in the bumps who were flailing around a bit...

Can't wait for tomorrow when I'll have some more time to play in them. Hopefully they'll be able to get the Nor'Easter bumps smoothed out a bit so I can try those too!

I think I just spent more time uploading pics and writing this then I did skiing tonight! :lol:

The rest of the pics are here:
http://forums.alpinezone.com/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/649
They were hard to take since it was dark out, these are the best ones...

 

[adamti91]

Nice report. I have never been night snowboarding, I want to at Windham as soon as I can get a ride up there and back though. The green (I'm guessing from the night vision on your camera?) looks really eerie!

 

[bvibert]

The green is from lights they use to light the trails, it doesn't seem that green when you're there though. In that really green pic I turned the flash off so I could get a pic of the bumps which were kind of far away. That's why its kinda blurry...

 

[Greg]

Thanks Brian! Okay - to clarify - bumps are skier's right on Nor'easter from the sun deck down and then on Lower Nor'easter as well as skier's right of Ex once it starts to drop down to the base? How long is the field on Ex?

They do look a bit funky for sure. Were all these runs open? Hopefully they all got a nice top-dressing last night. Looks like the field on lower Nor'easter will set up with some pretty tight lines. I'll be doing my part and skiing them in tonight! Can't wait!

 

[2knees]

I'll be doing my part and skiing them in tonight! Can't wait!

Remember, people are counting on you guys tonight. Work those things in.

Nice report B. You're getting out a ton this year.

 

[bvibert]

Thanks Brian! Okay - to clarify - bumps are skier's right on Nor'easter from the sun deck down and then on Lower Nor'easter as well as skier's right of Ex once it starts to drop down to the base? How long is the field on Ex?

They do look a bit funky for sure. Were all these runs open? Hopefully they all got a nice top-dressing last night. Looks like the field on lower Nor'easter will set up with some pretty tight lines. I'll be doing my part and skiing them in tonight! Can't wait!

Yes that is where they are, though they seemed to stop a bit short of the bottom of Nor'easter. The bumps on Ex start where the last turn is where it really opens up before the last pitch. The first several turns are on really flat terrain until you get to pitch. They go all the way almost to the bottom. There could be maybe 2 or 3 more rows at the bottom before it totally flattens out, they probably left it that way so you'd have a chance to get up some speed to make it back to the lift.

All the runs were open, nothing was closed or blocked off. I was thinking they might try to blow a top coating on them last night. I guess we'll see tonight. The snow makers were definitely on the mountain getting guns ready to go for the night, I only saw them on Gunny though...

 

[Greg]

Yes that is where they are, though they seemed to stop a bit short of the bottom of Nor'easter. The bumps on Ex start where the last turn is where it really opens up before the last pitch. The first several turns are on really flat terrain until you get to pitch. They go all the way almost to the bottom. There could be maybe 2 or 3 more rows at the bottom before it totally flattens out, they probably left it that way so you'd have a chance to get up some speed to make it back to the lift.

Nice. So it sounds like we now have bumps to ski on much of Sundown's vert (minus the drop down to the sun deck and the Canyon flats). I called the snow phone and they are hyping the bumps! The bumps on Ex, they are calling "training bumps". Those looked to be already getting skied in based on your pics.

 

[Greg]

How were the troughs? Icey already, or that edgeable hardpack? How was the surface on the rest of the mountain?

 

[bvibert]

How were the troughs? Icey already, or that edgeable hardpack? How was the surface on the rest of the mountain?

They weren't really much of troughs when I was there, more like flat spots in between bumps. It was mostly edgable with some slick spots. In the tighter bumps towards the bottom of Ex it was all packed powder/powder.

The rest of the mountain, I honestly didn't pay that much attention to... Some definite hard-pack with a few slick spots would be a good description I guess. Actually there was some nice powdery stuff to skiers left of Canyon too...

 

[Greg]

They weren't really much of troughs when I was there, more like flat spots in between bumps..

We got some work to do...

 

[bvibert]

We got some work to do...

Yes, they need some massaging for sure.

 

[Greg]

Yes, they need some massaging for sure.

Doesn't look like anyone hit the ones on Lower Nor'easter at all. Did you see anyone go down them? Tracks? Perhaps they just finished seeding them in the evening?

 

[bvibert]

Doesn't look like anyone hit the ones on Lower Nor'easter at all. Did you see anyone go down them? Tracks? Perhaps they just finished seeding them in the evening?

No it didn't look like anyone had went down them. I didn't spend a lot of time looking though. I only had about 40 minutes to get in as many runs as I could... It's quite possible they had recently finished seeding them.