powderfreak
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- Joined
- Jan 9, 2007
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April 3 - Day 85
Thursday was the best spring day of the season so far for me. I'd been waiting for that 50F full sunshine day and we got it. We stopped at the supermarket and picked up burgers, dogs, and reeb, so we'd be fully prepared for the afternoon.
Hard to complain about these spring days.
http://tinyurl.com/4h9zuz
Snow was a bit firm in the shade through noon but after that it was all good. Chin Clip was rocking the massive hero bumps...in-fact everything was sporting hero snow. A bunch of us had been staring at the rock garden and around 1pm we decided it was probably soft. The weather on the ridge was calm and warm, a nice change of pace after several very frigid adventures up there this season.
http://tinyurl.com/693365
http://tinyurl.com/4suts9
The ride down was fun, too.
http://tinyurl.com/48jqkj
Later on, we fired up the grill and chilled in the sun for a few more hours, swapping stories from the winter.
April 4 - Day 86
I had some family friend's visiting for a couple days and they were anxious to ski; we headed up early and found firm conditions. This was the first morning in a while that I didn't want to stop-the-brutal-grooming. We watched as the Worcester Range became engulfed in snow, and watched the wall of snow curl around Mansfield from the south. A couple hours of flurries turned into moderate to at times heavy snowfall.
Some photos after lunch at Midway...spring yesterday, snow today. I can dig it.
http://tinyurl.com/3evqsq
http://tinyurl.com/4f25mg
http://tinyurl.com/4b2sns
Angel Food was skiing great (relative to the morning) by the end of the day with 3" of snow on top of the old, frozen stuff. We also did 4-5 laps of skiing under the Kitchen wall to Nosedive glade extension, to Goatdive woods. This stuff was skiing really smooth and I was starting to think that Saturday would be great.
April 5 - Day 87
Woke up not really knowing what to expect especially after seeing various wx reports of rain/snow/freezing drizzle across the area. This could go either way. Well, it was light rain all the way to the Matterhorn but about 100 yards past that it changed instantly over to all snow. I thought this would bode well for surface conditions but alas, it appeared that it did rain up there at some point...the 3" the fell yesterday wasn't improved upon at night.
The lower 500 feet of vertical seemed to have missed out on the epic freezing drizzle/mist event that took place on Friday night. The upper 1,500ft had the gnarliest breakable crust I've seen in some time; lets just say off-piste was a struggle at best. The trails were pretty slick, too. It was evident that the drizzle and mist were forming well below the dendrite growth zone so although we had a below 32F column above us, we still weren't seeing crystals. Ahh, the joy of freezing drizzle.
By the afternoon, however, things had changed for the better and the sun was starting to come out. The crust held firm up top but from the Bench elevation downward, the crust turned into a cream-cheese consistency that was actually fun...just give it time in the spring and hope the sun comes out. We skied Bench runs till 2:30 when my friends had to head back to Albany.
There's nothing like the variability of New England in the spring-time! Gotta put in a few hours at work today, but have nothing to do but ski all day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You know where I'll be heading...the forecast looks great for a corn harvest and I'm trying to go for 100 true ski days (true as in you wake up and the only thing you have to do that day is ski, not go to work before or after...
-Scott
Thursday was the best spring day of the season so far for me. I'd been waiting for that 50F full sunshine day and we got it. We stopped at the supermarket and picked up burgers, dogs, and reeb, so we'd be fully prepared for the afternoon.
Hard to complain about these spring days.
http://tinyurl.com/4h9zuz
Snow was a bit firm in the shade through noon but after that it was all good. Chin Clip was rocking the massive hero bumps...in-fact everything was sporting hero snow. A bunch of us had been staring at the rock garden and around 1pm we decided it was probably soft. The weather on the ridge was calm and warm, a nice change of pace after several very frigid adventures up there this season.
http://tinyurl.com/693365
http://tinyurl.com/4suts9
The ride down was fun, too.
http://tinyurl.com/48jqkj
Later on, we fired up the grill and chilled in the sun for a few more hours, swapping stories from the winter.
April 4 - Day 86
I had some family friend's visiting for a couple days and they were anxious to ski; we headed up early and found firm conditions. This was the first morning in a while that I didn't want to stop-the-brutal-grooming. We watched as the Worcester Range became engulfed in snow, and watched the wall of snow curl around Mansfield from the south. A couple hours of flurries turned into moderate to at times heavy snowfall.
Some photos after lunch at Midway...spring yesterday, snow today. I can dig it.
http://tinyurl.com/3evqsq
http://tinyurl.com/4f25mg
http://tinyurl.com/4b2sns
Angel Food was skiing great (relative to the morning) by the end of the day with 3" of snow on top of the old, frozen stuff. We also did 4-5 laps of skiing under the Kitchen wall to Nosedive glade extension, to Goatdive woods. This stuff was skiing really smooth and I was starting to think that Saturday would be great.
April 5 - Day 87
Woke up not really knowing what to expect especially after seeing various wx reports of rain/snow/freezing drizzle across the area. This could go either way. Well, it was light rain all the way to the Matterhorn but about 100 yards past that it changed instantly over to all snow. I thought this would bode well for surface conditions but alas, it appeared that it did rain up there at some point...the 3" the fell yesterday wasn't improved upon at night.
The lower 500 feet of vertical seemed to have missed out on the epic freezing drizzle/mist event that took place on Friday night. The upper 1,500ft had the gnarliest breakable crust I've seen in some time; lets just say off-piste was a struggle at best. The trails were pretty slick, too. It was evident that the drizzle and mist were forming well below the dendrite growth zone so although we had a below 32F column above us, we still weren't seeing crystals. Ahh, the joy of freezing drizzle.
By the afternoon, however, things had changed for the better and the sun was starting to come out. The crust held firm up top but from the Bench elevation downward, the crust turned into a cream-cheese consistency that was actually fun...just give it time in the spring and hope the sun comes out. We skied Bench runs till 2:30 when my friends had to head back to Albany.
There's nothing like the variability of New England in the spring-time! Gotta put in a few hours at work today, but have nothing to do but ski all day Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You know where I'll be heading...the forecast looks great for a corn harvest and I'm trying to go for 100 true ski days (true as in you wake up and the only thing you have to do that day is ski, not go to work before or after...
-Scott
