Wachusett 3/25/05

[Zand]

Date(s) Skied: 3/25/05

Resort or Ski Area: Wachusett Mountain, MA

Conditions: LSGR early, GLARE ICE late

Trip Report:

I went to Wawa for about 2 hours today. Temp ws 45 at arrival at 5 and 30 at 7. Lots of major injuries on the hill tonight mainly due to the quick change in conditions.

Conifer: Went down it once a few runs after grooming. It was just about all ice from top to bottom, expecially where the grooming marks remained.

Balance Rock: Went down twice. This was the 2nd best trail before the sun went down as it was smooth and had good coverage. A little bit of ice on the sharp turns, but fine other than that.

10th: Grooming turned a good trail into glare ice. The bumps had good lines (for once), but were too icy to enjoy.

Smith: Probably the best trail of the night. However, Lower Smith was closed from 5:45 till 6:15 from the road to the Vickery Bowl due to a major accident. They had about 6 ski patrollers treating the kid, so it wasn't pretty. Upper was in good shape the whole time.

Look Mom: They screwed around with most of the features and made them worse. There was a bit of ice, but enough for control on landings, etc. The pipe was nice.

Hitchcock Park: The key word is ice. Also, many people were going down it and getting in people's way although they weren't hitting the features. The orange fence is there for a reason people! Go down Frannie's!

The big problem is that they groomed too early. They should have waited until everything froze to groom. The groomers made big holes in the wet snow and they ended up freezing.

I hope to get up next Tuesday, though the forecast isn't pretty. Rain and 60s.

 

[thetrailboss]

A lot of injuries today at Pat's as well...

Same experience as me with Wa-Wa...got real icy...I don't know why they don't groom (they brag about how they did).

Heard that the bumps were leveled...must be they let them re-form. They were pretty bad on Tues.

 

[trackbiker]

Date(s) Skied: 3/25/05

Resort or Ski Area: Wachusett Mountain, MA

Conditions: LSGR early, GLARE ICE late

Trip Report:

I went to Wawa for about 2 hours today. Temp ws 45 at arrival at 5 and 30 at 7. Lots of major injuries on the hill tonight mainly due to the quick change in conditions.



10th: Grooming turned a good trail into glare ice. The bumps had good lines (for once), but were too icy to enjoy.


Look Mom: They screwed around with most of the features and made them worse. There was a bit of ice, but enough for control on landings, etc. The pipe was nice.

Hitchcock Park: The key word is ice. Also, many people were going down it and getting in people's way although they weren't hitting the features. The orange fence is there for a reason people! Go down Frannie's!

The big problem is that they groomed too early. They should have waited until everything froze to groom. The groomers made big holes in the wet snow and they ended up freezing.

Skied Blue Mt.,PA on similar conditions the same night. Snow was mashed potato's when I got there at 5:00. The snow started freezing as the sun went down. The conditions turned to frozen granular on the trails that had some traffic to break it up as it froze. The black diamonds had some frozen clumps later on in the night due to low traffic. On a normal Fri. night I think that they would have skied in great. No glare ice. No ice at all. I think that the key was that they DIDN'T groom and compress it into ice. From 8:00 to 10:00 the conditions were great on the trails that had some traffic.
It was tough to ski as the temps dropped. Frozen granular at the top, turning to mashed potato's (with gravy) at the bottom. Took my worst spill of the season on the bottom as was I going fast and trying to pass someone on the side were the "potato's" were thick.
Again, I think that the key was not grooming. I think that the conditions were probably great this morning after the black diamonds had been skied in for about an hour and the blues and greens were groomed AFTER it froze.

 

[MichaelJ]

That didn't take long to change, then. I was there the Tuesday right before you, and it was perfect after grooming. But then again, the trails I was on (Ralph's, Conifer, Hitchcock & Frannies) were groomed after the sun went down, while the trails I was avoiding (Challenger, Smith) were not and so froze glare.

Ralph's was as fine a spring condition as could be, with a wonderful topping of tightly-stuck but easily carvable frozen granular. On some of my turns it felt as smooth as packed powder only louder. Conifer was emminently runnable. Hitchcock only had one patch of scratch ice and it was easily spotted and avoided (even going over it, it was still scratchy enough to handle).

It sounds like they really should be moving their grooming to follow sundown instead of the clock. That's too bad, because Tuesday night was easily the finest spring skiing I've done.