Loon Friday 1/15/16
Date skied: Friday 1/15/16
Location: Loon Mountain
Conditions: Machine made packed powder
Trip report:
My sons had a random day off from school so I grabbed a day from work too so we could ski. Kind of weird that it was our 1st day out and kind of a shake out/get the feel of your gear kind of day. Very late this year for us to be at that stage of our season. I opted for Loon because I figured that it was still all about who had the snowmaking and Loon is the closest "has a shitload of snowmaking" area to us.
I was expecting empty slopes/lifts because it was a weekday. But it was busier than expected. We were still basically skiing onto the lifts, but it was busier than I thought it would be. Gondola actually had a decent line at times during the day. I think a lot of people were thinking "snowmaking" like me and headed there.
It was a "good" day. Decent conditions and a decent amount of terrain open. I only qualify it because it was all man made and it had that kind of a funky, sticky-Styrofoam kind of feeling to it. They left a lot of the guns running all day (you can see that in the pics). That was good but what was being made was of really variable conditions. Some hard, some wet, some - who knows? You had to be careful as you skied it as it went from "run!" to "stop!!" and back from wale to wale.
Run of the day was probably Rip Saw over at South peak. They had just opened it and it's steep - so at least it felt like "skiing". I get why people call Loon "the Okemo of NH". It skied a lot like that today. Lower Flume was OK with some snow making wales to ski and some loose snow. You could tell they were pumping up the volume on that to make enough snow to create the bump area they usually leave there. Lower Speakeasy had guns going the length of it and was OK. Some pics below.
Kanc Quad at 10:30 AM. I bet it didn't look like that today:
Lower Flume:
Guns blazin on upper flume:
Lower Speakeasy:
I think this is Picked Rock:
Location: Loon Mountain
Conditions: Machine made packed powder
Trip report:
My sons had a random day off from school so I grabbed a day from work too so we could ski. Kind of weird that it was our 1st day out and kind of a shake out/get the feel of your gear kind of day. Very late this year for us to be at that stage of our season. I opted for Loon because I figured that it was still all about who had the snowmaking and Loon is the closest "has a shitload of snowmaking" area to us.
I was expecting empty slopes/lifts because it was a weekday. But it was busier than expected. We were still basically skiing onto the lifts, but it was busier than I thought it would be. Gondola actually had a decent line at times during the day. I think a lot of people were thinking "snowmaking" like me and headed there.
It was a "good" day. Decent conditions and a decent amount of terrain open. I only qualify it because it was all man made and it had that kind of a funky, sticky-Styrofoam kind of feeling to it. They left a lot of the guns running all day (you can see that in the pics). That was good but what was being made was of really variable conditions. Some hard, some wet, some - who knows? You had to be careful as you skied it as it went from "run!" to "stop!!" and back from wale to wale.
Run of the day was probably Rip Saw over at South peak. They had just opened it and it's steep - so at least it felt like "skiing". I get why people call Loon "the Okemo of NH". It skied a lot like that today. Lower Flume was OK with some snow making wales to ski and some loose snow. You could tell they were pumping up the volume on that to make enough snow to create the bump area they usually leave there. Lower Speakeasy had guns going the length of it and was OK. Some pics below.
Kanc Quad at 10:30 AM. I bet it didn't look like that today:
Lower Flume:
Guns blazin on upper flume:
Lower Speakeasy:
I think this is Picked Rock: