Wachusett 3/26/08

[Zand]

Date(s) Skied: Wednesday Night 3/26/08

Resort or Ski Area: Wachusett Mountain, MA

Conditions: Spring early, hardening up as the sun went down

Trip Report:

Decent night at Wachusett tonight. Lots of snow still on the mountain. Place looks so damn small and flat after being in Vermont 2 straight weekends. Only stayed for 2 hours and there isn't much else to say so here's a quick trail report.

Balance Rock / Conifer: Balance Rock still has great coverage and obviously so does Conifer. Run was nice as my only run on it was at 5:15 when it was still nice and soft. Roper's is done.

10th / Salamander: You know there's a lot of cover when even the top of Salamander isn't sporting any bare spots. The bumps were recently reseeded but the patterns suck and they weren't much fun. Soft though.

Smith: A little scraped before the headwall but not bad for the most part. This time last year it was already starting to fall victim to spring... shows how good the coverage is this year.

Hitchcock: Not too great... lots of ice, especially on Frannie's.

Look Mom: Took a few runs in the park tonight, especially when stuff started to harden up. The jumps are all in good shape but the trail is just about bare to the left of the big jumps. I imagine they'll flatten one of them to get some cover over there. Halfpipe had a bit of the wall on skiers right taken away for the big air jump and the pipe's shape is getting pretty bad.

That's all for tonight... both lifts ski on and in full speed. I'll be back for the potential late season powder day Friday.

 

[jack97]

10th / Salamander: You know there's a lot of cover when even the top of Salamander isn't sporting any bare spots. The bumps were recently reseeded but the patterns suck and they weren't much fun. Soft though.

Seems like a reoccurring theme, every time they reseed, they mess up the pattern. Maybe these guys should call Sundown to get some advise.

 

[Greg]

Seems like a reoccurring theme, every time they reseed, they mess up the pattern. Maybe these guys should call Sundown to get some advise.

I don't think the folks at Sundown really overthink it all that much. They just plop piles and that's that. Certainly no gridlike pattern so they actually ski in like natural bumps eventually.

 

[jack97]

I don't think the folks at Sundown really overthink it all that much. They just plop piles and that's that. Certainly no gridlike pattern so they actually ski in like natural bumps eventually.

Maybe I'm getting a hair across my @ss b/c the season is winding down but look at the formation they seed. Patterns are always close to the below; the bumps doesn't alternate and its takes a while to form left-right-left right contours in that formation. Then they reseed due to weather (which is understandable).

(from skine.net)

 

[Greg]

Kinda looks like you can only get 3 or 4 bumps before you're shot into the woods or onto the groomer. The only thing you can do is tell them...

 

[jack97]

Kinda looks like you can only get 3 or 4 bumps before you're shot into the woods or onto the groomer. The only thing you can do is tell them...

Yep, I will.

Its a great visual of why marc, zand and I (and others) have been complaining when they reseed.

 

[hiroto]

Kinda looks like you can only get 3 or 4 bumps before you're shot into the woods or onto the groomer. The only thing you can do is tell them...

I heard from an instructor there that they seed bumps there by running cat diagonally, not like straight down the hill we saw on bubbutts' video at Sunapee. So those 4 bumps are perfectly aligned when looked at from the side and up, but kind of asymmetric down the fall line.

 

[jack97]

I heard from an instructor there that they seed bumps there by running cat diagonally, not like straight down the hill we saw on bubbutts' video at Sunapee. So those 4 bumps are perfectly aligned when looked at from the side and up, but kind of asymmetric down the fall line.

Yes, Wa always have a slight diagonal when they seed but it doesn't come out as an alternating pattern, you can see that slight diagonal in the pic above.

If you look at bobbutts vid, the flat light doesn't show the contrast well but starting at the 43 sec mark, you can how they form bumps on an alternating pattern, by piling snow and then running it over on top with the cat.

Damn.... that's a thing of beauty.