hrstrat57
Member
Date(s) Skied: February 17, 2008, February 19, 2008
Resort or Ski Area: Lincoln Peak and Mt Ellen 2/17, Mt Ellen 2/19
Conditions: pp 2/17, fg 2/19
Weather: 2/17 Bluebird Skies, Temps in the 20's, clouding up warming up late/ sunny, partly cloudy low 30's 2/19
TR,
The planned 4 day on snow trip turned to 3 as my son arrived too late on Friday to make it up for Saturday skiing.
Sunday,
Skiing with ms hrstrat57(lvl 4/5) lil ms hrstrat57 (lvl5/6) limited terrain choice to blues mostly off super bravo lift. 3/4 fantastic runs on Snowball started things off. Conditions were excellent but by 10:00 the lines were pretty long. I decided to take the crew(which included my 23 y/o son) for their first joy ride on the Slidebrook Express.
My daughter giggled nearly the entire way....great fun.
Mt Ellen was much less crowded and conditions of course were just as good. The ladies really liked the Inverness lift, we spent quite a bit of time working that, along with the GMX.
The ride back on the Slidebrook was pretty windy....the chair actually stopped briefly a couple of times.....it was pretty wild...fun in a crazy sort of way.
The ladies took a break so the boys did a couple top/bottoms on organgrinder which was in great shape. We then grabbed a couple more runs on Snowball via the valley double to finish the day.
Planned day 2 was washed out via a midwinter monsoon...temps Sat reached mid 50's. We took a sidetrip to Burlington, see the chow thread.
So the original day 4 plan then day 3 plan turned into day 2.
Tuesday,
Arrived at MT Ellen around 7:30 ready to go, greeted by a wind hold and a major j1/j2 super g race on Inverness -which actually turned out to be a good thing. In fact, if not for the race teams....well the mountain would have been empty.
We starting off on the blues off GMX at 8:15, upper lifts remained on hold. Conditions were corduroy bulletproof. ms hrstrat57 was not happy. Me, my son and even my daughter of course.....well this is what we ski here in NE right? No worries, let em run in big arcs.
Ms however took a couple runs and opted for a good book in the lodge. We ski'd off GMX for a couple hours.....with J1's buzzing all around loosening up.
We then headed over to Inverness lift to check out the racing and play around a bit on Walts. Surprisingly once the racing began it became obvious that all the buzzing J1's and J2's has chopped up all the frozen granular into fluffier loose granular. Easy to edge and very fast. They had done the same all the way over to the GMX, thus including Cruiser and Whichway.
Despite the major race event we never waited in line....ski'd right onto the chair everytime...other than us and the racers the entire mountain was empty. There was no one on the upper mountain. Ungroomed terrain was pretty much unskiable me and my son tried one run off North Ridge Express (Bravo?) and it was pretty nasty.
So which day was better....great conditions with big crowds or not so good with an empty hill?
I'll take the empty hill all day.
If you are off to the MRV, fear not....there is at least 3/4 feet of snow on the ground....more on the mountain. Hopefully a storm will freshen things up the base is rock solid. There is no question MRG is the same. I heard the steep stuff was shut down as it was just too nasty.....I did not see anyone on F.I.S. or Exterminator all day Tuesday at Sugarbush.....
Book it and do it.
....and try the flatbread...yum:flag:
Resort or Ski Area: Lincoln Peak and Mt Ellen 2/17, Mt Ellen 2/19
Conditions: pp 2/17, fg 2/19
Weather: 2/17 Bluebird Skies, Temps in the 20's, clouding up warming up late/ sunny, partly cloudy low 30's 2/19
TR,
The planned 4 day on snow trip turned to 3 as my son arrived too late on Friday to make it up for Saturday skiing.
Sunday,
Skiing with ms hrstrat57(lvl 4/5) lil ms hrstrat57 (lvl5/6) limited terrain choice to blues mostly off super bravo lift. 3/4 fantastic runs on Snowball started things off. Conditions were excellent but by 10:00 the lines were pretty long. I decided to take the crew(which included my 23 y/o son) for their first joy ride on the Slidebrook Express.
My daughter giggled nearly the entire way....great fun.
Mt Ellen was much less crowded and conditions of course were just as good. The ladies really liked the Inverness lift, we spent quite a bit of time working that, along with the GMX.
The ride back on the Slidebrook was pretty windy....the chair actually stopped briefly a couple of times.....it was pretty wild...fun in a crazy sort of way.
The ladies took a break so the boys did a couple top/bottoms on organgrinder which was in great shape. We then grabbed a couple more runs on Snowball via the valley double to finish the day.
Planned day 2 was washed out via a midwinter monsoon...temps Sat reached mid 50's. We took a sidetrip to Burlington, see the chow thread.
So the original day 4 plan then day 3 plan turned into day 2.
Tuesday,
Arrived at MT Ellen around 7:30 ready to go, greeted by a wind hold and a major j1/j2 super g race on Inverness -which actually turned out to be a good thing. In fact, if not for the race teams....well the mountain would have been empty.
We starting off on the blues off GMX at 8:15, upper lifts remained on hold. Conditions were corduroy bulletproof. ms hrstrat57 was not happy. Me, my son and even my daughter of course.....well this is what we ski here in NE right? No worries, let em run in big arcs.
Ms however took a couple runs and opted for a good book in the lodge. We ski'd off GMX for a couple hours.....with J1's buzzing all around loosening up.
We then headed over to Inverness lift to check out the racing and play around a bit on Walts. Surprisingly once the racing began it became obvious that all the buzzing J1's and J2's has chopped up all the frozen granular into fluffier loose granular. Easy to edge and very fast. They had done the same all the way over to the GMX, thus including Cruiser and Whichway.
Despite the major race event we never waited in line....ski'd right onto the chair everytime...other than us and the racers the entire mountain was empty. There was no one on the upper mountain. Ungroomed terrain was pretty much unskiable me and my son tried one run off North Ridge Express (Bravo?) and it was pretty nasty.
So which day was better....great conditions with big crowds or not so good with an empty hill?
I'll take the empty hill all day.
If you are off to the MRV, fear not....there is at least 3/4 feet of snow on the ground....more on the mountain. Hopefully a storm will freshen things up the base is rock solid. There is no question MRG is the same. I heard the steep stuff was shut down as it was just too nasty.....I did not see anyone on F.I.S. or Exterminator all day Tuesday at Sugarbush.....
Book it and do it.
....and try the flatbread...yum:flag:
