powderfreak
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- Jan 9, 2007
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Some time freed up this afternoon so I beelined it for the mountain. I knew they'd been blasting top to bottom now so there was no doubt something would be skied. It was 20F in the parking lot at noon. This is quite chilly for mid-November and felt downright cold while gearing up...I had forgot about that pleasant north wind that gets funneled through the notch and then across the parking lots. Alas, skinning warms you up pretty quickly and I was actually glad I wasn't just getting on the quad for a numbing 7 minutes after freezing in the parking lot.
The fan gun was out doing its best to bury the base area.
The area between the actual quad loading area and Crossover is where they can have trouble making and keeping enough snow to open...but its not gonna be a problem this year thanks to the cold.
As far as natural snow goes, there was well less than an inch at Toll Road (1,300ft), an inch at the quad base (1,600), and maybe 3" at the top. So skiing natural ski trails was not really an option...I don't mind skiing on a snowmaking trail but skinning up one is not exactly enjoyable. Luckily there is marginally enough natural snow mixed with man-made blow-in to skin on from the base up.
I quickly bailed on North Slope for Daulton. Very enjoyable.
Then up Crossover.
Snowmaking was in progress on North Slope and lower Lord, so I went up the next trail, Gulch...then I met a skin track that proceeded up T-line. This was definitely the preferred route with snowmaking going on both adjacent trails.
Above the Triple, I went back out to Lord where they had turned the guns off...having turned the focus to the lower mountain trails while they've got the cold. They've made a lot of snow up on Lord and Ridgeview.
http://tinyurl.com/6z8fuu
http://tinyurl.com/6zuc36
I started to notice the guns had been off for a day or more up high...because there was several inches of fresh powder on top of all the snowmaking piles. This was starting to look really good. Anywhere that hadn't seen cat or sled traffic was powder on a man-made base.
I hung out up top for a few minutes but not too long...it wasn't getting any warmer up there. The turns from the top on Ridgeview were very enjoyable. It skied like powder, felt like powder, smelt like powder...
Even on solely the man-made stuff the turns were smooth. Man-made snow was mainly chalky with occasional patches of less condensed punchy/breakable stuff. Down low it was mainly silky smooth.
[IMGhttp://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/November%2019%20Stowe/IMG_4849_edited-1.jpg[/IMG]
By far the worst areas were ones that had been completely tracked out by machinery. Solid ice death chunks were the rule in those areas. The bad part is these machine tracks will multiply as they start doing working out the piles tomorrow. There's at least a day of cat-work to be done on the trails before opening day and they'll most likely start knocking 'em done tomorrow leaving boulder sized chunks everywhere.
Oh well, just have to go up tomorrow and find out.
-Scott
The fan gun was out doing its best to bury the base area.
The area between the actual quad loading area and Crossover is where they can have trouble making and keeping enough snow to open...but its not gonna be a problem this year thanks to the cold.
As far as natural snow goes, there was well less than an inch at Toll Road (1,300ft), an inch at the quad base (1,600), and maybe 3" at the top. So skiing natural ski trails was not really an option...I don't mind skiing on a snowmaking trail but skinning up one is not exactly enjoyable. Luckily there is marginally enough natural snow mixed with man-made blow-in to skin on from the base up.
I quickly bailed on North Slope for Daulton. Very enjoyable.
Then up Crossover.
Snowmaking was in progress on North Slope and lower Lord, so I went up the next trail, Gulch...then I met a skin track that proceeded up T-line. This was definitely the preferred route with snowmaking going on both adjacent trails.
Above the Triple, I went back out to Lord where they had turned the guns off...having turned the focus to the lower mountain trails while they've got the cold. They've made a lot of snow up on Lord and Ridgeview.
http://tinyurl.com/6z8fuu
http://tinyurl.com/6zuc36
I started to notice the guns had been off for a day or more up high...because there was several inches of fresh powder on top of all the snowmaking piles. This was starting to look really good. Anywhere that hadn't seen cat or sled traffic was powder on a man-made base.
I hung out up top for a few minutes but not too long...it wasn't getting any warmer up there. The turns from the top on Ridgeview were very enjoyable. It skied like powder, felt like powder, smelt like powder...
Even on solely the man-made stuff the turns were smooth. Man-made snow was mainly chalky with occasional patches of less condensed punchy/breakable stuff. Down low it was mainly silky smooth.
[IMGhttp://backtotheearthgroup.com/scottb/November%2019%20Stowe/IMG_4849_edited-1.jpg[/IMG]
By far the worst areas were ones that had been completely tracked out by machinery. Solid ice death chunks were the rule in those areas. The bad part is these machine tracks will multiply as they start doing working out the piles tomorrow. There's at least a day of cat-work to be done on the trails before opening day and they'll most likely start knocking 'em done tomorrow leaving boulder sized chunks everywhere.
Oh well, just have to go up tomorrow and find out.
-Scott
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