Wachusett 3/2/09

[Zand]

Date(s) Skied: Monday 3/2/09

Resort or Ski Area: Wachusett, MA

Conditions: Powder (12") early, Crud, Ice and Bumps late. Mid 10s, Upsloping wind, Snow

Trip Report:

Fun day at Wachusett. Arrived at 10:30 and parked in row 1. Place was dead in the morning and picked up VERY fast by noon... 5+ minute waits for the quads by then. Roads weren't bad at all and everyone found that out quick apparently. Probably a constant 20 MPH wind blowing straight up the mountain. Made an effect the polar opposite of Killington a few weeks ago... today the lift was comfortable, but going down was so windy that you were almost stopped dead, especially in the morning when it was still mainly powder.

Ropers/Balance Rock/Conifer: Ropers was a bit crappy at the turn, but was fine other than that. Used Balance Rock to take a few woods lines which were fun but a bit crappy underneath. I know, bad me, but I needed one day to explore Wachusett this season. Lower Balance was PP in the middle and powder on the sides. Conifer was crowded with bumps all over.

10th/Salamander: Bumps were awful... completely solid with lots of ice under the new snow. Lines seemed decent. 10th itself was good at the top and choppy towards the bottom. Salamander was skier packed so nice and carveable.

Smith: Decent bumps on the steep. The rest was extremely choppy. Took Hole in the Wall a few times, but got yelled at when the night rangers took over and camped out at the bottom. Can't have any fun at Wachusett at night. Polar was in normal speed with a growing line throughout the day. Broke down for about 20 mins around 4:00. They offloaded with the diesel motor and got it running normal again soon after.

Hitchcock/Frannies: Frannie's park was full of idiots who kept sitting near the boxes and on the mound at the end so that took the fun away. Also lots of powder on Hitchcock (with a few nasty patches popping up too from Friday).

Look Ma: Not enough speed when I tried to fight the powder and wind to get good air off the jumps. The landings on almost all of them were windblown and solid. The big air jump at the bottom is gone as is the invisible yellow fence.

Challenger: Took one run and it was full of beginners attempting the chopped up powder and bumps. Needless to say, they had a tough time. Minuteman also had a growing line to 5+ mins as the afternoon went on. Got crazy for a few minutes when Polar went down... luckily it happened right at 4 so the day ticket people leaving helped make it sane again.

Well, a good powder day at Wachusett. Groomers will fill in the nasty spots with it tonight so everything should be nice again after Friday's deluge. I should be back Friday. Trip to Lyndon and Burke got postponed to next Monday.

 

[hammer]

Saw this quote on the storm discussion thread:

from tgr:
"In case anyone was thinking of a quick run to wachussett I feel it's my duty to inform you that they groomed everything.
There's some new snow on top but blah."

Any truth to this?

Sounds like it was fun...after my last icy outing, I'd like to have the chance to take some runs in chowder...

 

[Zand]

They did groom last night and again at 4 PM tonight. Most of the storm came after last night's grooming though so it was legit first thing.

Oh, forgot to mention. Wachusett's version of Cooper's Cabin (the Harlow Outlook on Ropers Road) was quite the meeting spot at 4:20PM on this mellow Monday. You could smell it from like 100 feet up the trail lol.

 

[The Sneak]

We were there from 6:30 to 10 last night. It was cold and windy, strong upslope wind and intermittent snow. While we still parked in lot 1, it was in the back. I f'd up and brought my RX8s thinking everything would be predictably groomed and the place would be empty. Should have brought the wateas. The RX8 got tossed around in the crud. Smith headwall far right was great, 10th was very scraped off in between the bumps and fall line.

I snuck a run down salamander cutoff at the end of the night..it was better than any of the lit trails. Why doesn't the vickery chair turn at night? Should have poached that, too.

Although they did in fact do a 5 pm groom, it all got cut and scraped again very quickly. We went down conifer less than 5 minutes after the rope dropped and you could barely tell it was groomed. Both lower smith and 10th were piles of crud/chowder with scrapey spots in the usual areas.

Place emptied out like usual by 8, 8:30. Polar Express was ski on by 8:30 but even the singles line went way out past the corral early on.

Snow was better on the minuteman side. Far right of challenger was awesome after racing ended.

 

[awf170]

Saw this quote on the storm discussion thread:



Any truth to this?

Sounds like it was fun...after my last icy outing, I'd like to have the chance to take some runs in chowder...

There were a few inches on top of the groomer, so they probably groomed down the first 3ish inches of snow. They killed Ralph's though. I came down it in a beautiful 8 inches of fresh powder at 7:30am. Definitely one of my best runs of the season. About a third of the way down I saw a line of groomers driving up the slope. 15 minutes later when I skinned up it was groomed completely flat. Me = 1, Wachusett = 0.