Conditions: Ungroomed areas – 4-6 inches powder with a thick break through crust. Groomed runs, ice crusted cord, packed natural skied well

Trip Report:

With the snow arriving Saturday night, we watched the weather reports closely. In fact we had been all week. It was calling for a switch to freezing r#$n over night then to r#$m in the later morning hours. However, we held to the belief that it would all end around 11. Our plan was to use the comps that came from seeing Days of Our Youth ($15) at Flying Monkey on Plymouth. That plan worked out perfectly. We had five passes all total which we shared with friends.

We got to the mountain around 10:30 and at 11 grabbed a quick bite at Birches (used to be the Bistro). IMO, the food was not very good and they make bad Bloody Mary’s. I digress! In any case, everything in the building is getting renamed and retooled they have changed the look inside quite a bit which was pretty evident when the place is empty as it was for us! We also noticed some of the regular employees are not longer there and their sales and marketing staff have all been replaced. This year was a big change in direction for them apparently.

Around 11:30 we got out and started making runs. Exhibition was still closed and I noticed that there are significant erosion ditches on that trail – so they have work to do. Next, I noticed several closed trails with whales. Many have complaining on the Ragged thread that they are sucking at snow making, but they have the goods to push around on several trails, not sure why they are waiting. They could possibly open a half dozen more trails with out much more effort. I spoke to the marketing person about the snow making approach and she said their "Snow Master" is really good and wants a good product for the visitors and they would rather have a deep base on a handful of trails then to spread out too much and not have enough cover. They heard people complain that new skis are getting pretty scratched up at some of the other places. Whatever!

Overall, there were technically three main paths down – 1) Flying Yankee (only one off the new chair), 2) Blueberry Patch or Headwall -> Lower Ridge, and New Found Ridge -> Main Street. There was also another trail off Flying Yankee that connected you to Showboat that no one was skiing. We found it because we saw Ski Patrol coming out of the edge of the woods on to Showboat so we went hunting. Turns out it was the best run of the day with fresh cord.

Every trail skied really well for the most part, they had groomed it before the freezing rain and as we ripped up the cord it produced death cookies. However with it being soft underneath it was track able. Conditions were fast as well which was a little tough since visibility was not far and the trails did have little dips and bumps causing you to pay attention. The worst groomed trail was New Found Ridge -> Main Street. It was in rough shape since it seemed to have been groomed after things iced up but somehow due to the challenge of it, it became my favorite run with Showboat being #2, Flying Yankee #3, Lower Ridge #4. BTW, I am not a fan of Blueberry Patch, however due to icing over, it skied really fast for a flat trail. We took a goof off run on Barnyard and saw the condos going in over there before everyone went in. I ended up lapping 6 Pack and skiing the New Found Ridge Trail a couple of times by myself. Any of the soft stuff that was crusted over was hard to ski, but I tried a few times and it got tricky.

I like days like these, because the r%^n scared everyone away. Last year there were a couple of missed skiing days that cleared up by mid day so my wife and I committed to paying closer attention to weather timing and going for it. So far twice this season it has paid off. Yesterday, there was nobody, nobody there!

View from the Pub and 10:30
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View from the Pub at 2:00
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My wife, son and friends on the chair up ahead
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Looking towards the lodge from New Found Ridge towards Main Street
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$4.00
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