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The 2012/13 Ski Season Thread


ski MRG

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People are going to make a HUGE deal about this storm skiing wise. Truth is, it's not that great skiing snow. Good for base building but it's thicker and denser. Little sticky actually. Needs to dry out with some colder air. Then it will be tops.

You want to put fluff higher up on the hierarchy I can understand that, but can't agree with the bolded. It was fantastic today. Hit Berkshire East, and as long as you brought the rock skis everything was in play. Anything with pitch skied great, a good leg workout and a total blast. So much untracked. Loved it. 14-16" of heavy cool whip.

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You want to put fluff higher up on the hierarchy I can understand that, but can't agree with the bolded. It was fantastic today. Hit Berkshire East, and as long as you brought the rock skis everything was in play. Anything with pitch skied great, a good leg workout and a total blast. So much untracked. Loved it. 14-16" of heavy cool whip.

Yea glad to see this post, I took his comments the same way you did. Sounds like a blast and I know how empty the Beast is .
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People are going to make a HUGE deal about this storm skiing wise. Truth is, it's not that great skiing snow. Good for base building but it's thicker and denser. Little sticky actually. Needs to dry out with some colder air. Then it will be tops.

A little sticky? "not that great skiing snow"....c'mon adk, you know that *ALL* and any snow is great for skiing ;)

I didn't notice any of that. Just good, ol' nor'easter snow made up of needles and plates. Certainly can't make a snowball with the stuff.

I actually enjoy this type of snow. It covers stuff up. I'm sort of a fan of Sierra snow for that reason. If you don't see something, you probably won't hit something. And you gotta ski it aggressively. None of this lazy turn no resistance fluff.

Its just not as photogenic. I must sound like an idiot, but skiing the 2% fluff every day gets a bit old and its nice to mix it up with a good, dense storm snow. Its so much more durable in terms of base depths and you can really charge it.

And people should rightfully make a huge deal about this storm... we went all last year without a solid widespread 12"+ synoptic snowfall in Vermont. Its not like its 32-33F wet snow... its 18-24F cold storm snow.

Anyway, faceshots were still had. Here's a gloved hand and pole.

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can anyone suggest some afforable places to stay close enough to drive to Jay Peak?

Fairfield Inn right off 89 Williston vt $76 AAA rate, there seems to be availability and it is decent from what i can see having been here a couple hrs. Might still be 45 to an hr to Jay, i dunno, but gets u within reach.

MRG first thing for me. Gnite

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A little sticky? "not that great skiing snow"....c'mon adk, you know that *ALL* and any snow is great for skiing wink.png

I didn't notice any of that. Just good, ol' nor'easter snow made up of needles and plates. Certainly can't make a snowball with the stuff.

I actually enjoy this type of snow. It covers stuff up. I'm sort of a fan of Sierra snow for that reason. If you don't see something, you probably won't hit something. And you gotta ski it aggressively. None of this lazy turn no resistance fluff.

Its just not as photogenic. I must sound like an idiot, but skiing the 2% fluff every day gets a bit old and its nice to mix it up with a good, dense storm snow. Its so much more durable in terms of base depths and you can really charge it.

And people should rightfully make a huge deal about this storm... we went all last year without a solid widespread 12"+ synoptic snowfall in Vermont. Its not like its 32-33F wet snow... its 18-24F cold storm snow.

Anyway, faceshots were still had. Here's a gloved hand and pole.

My point was salted by a terrible day in the office. Apologies.

Well taken. We needed this snow. The woods needed it, the resorts needed and it did get better throughout the day.

Scolding accepted.

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Last 12 days has seen around 5 feet of snow on Mansfield above 2,500ft. Sugarbush is showing 80 inches in the past two weeks.

This is nothing like last winter, haha. What an amazing holiday week...could not have picked a better two week stretch to pick up some solid snowfall. This is like some of those months in 07-08 and 08-09 when the northern Green Mountain resorts were tallying over 100 inches per month.

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Checking in from K access road - great day except for low visibility up top. Feel like we've already seen more snow this season than all of last year totaled up. Makes for very happy ski house. Crowds starting to get worse, Sunday & Monday will be ridiculous. Probably getting out on Sunday and coming back next Friday eve. Why fight the crowds if you've got the whole season....

Telluride booked! Renegading my friends' condo on our ski club's trip. Only getting 2 days on the mtn but I'm there!

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My point was salted by a terrible day in the office. Apologies.

Well taken. We needed this snow. The woods needed it, the resorts needed and it did get better throughout the day.

Scolding accepted.

Actually, I don’t think much scolding was warranted; you were right on track from a pure quality standpoint adk, and I’d back you up on that based on skiing the past two storms. This snow from this nor’easter was nothing to scoff at, and the base-building aspect was irreplaceable, but powder turns were much different in the champagne on Sunday than they were in the synoptic snow as it was falling on Thursday, or after things had settled yesterday. I’ve come to notice it more in the past few years, and have mentioned it in my reports, but dry champagne snow will typically provide pleasant fluffy turns for many more passes of skiers – the tracks don’t seem to deteriorate the experience much. But with denser snow, passing through other’s tracks throws you around a lot more, and you definitely know that you’re skiing previously skied snow. It was very obvious to us yesterday at Bolton; areas that were partially tracked up were more challenging, and it actually took a while for us to get our groove and find snow that “worked”. It turns out that ether untracked snow, or snow that was mostly skier packed provided the best turns – the partially tracked stuff just didn’t match up. With that said, I think that the powder did dry out a bit by yesterday, so untracked areas turned out to be really nice. You didn’t sink in to the depth you would in champagne, but it was still really good and it had that “stout” feel that you don’t get with champagne. And, to add to your question about the effects of the rather uncommon east wind at Bolton with this last storm – I noticed it a bit on Thursday, but it was very evident yesterday. Headwalls at Timberline that are typically wind scoured, were filled in beautifully with a solid shot of hearty snow that felt like it was something you’d see on an stable Alaskan face. So, you were definitely correct about over-hyping the snow quality, certainly on a relative scale, but no complaints about this latest storm – the snow really skied well, especially if you could get it untracked. Dylan demonstrating that yesterday at Bolton:

28DEC12B.jpg

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Not a skier but figured I'd throw this second hand report in here. Two of my nephews work for a property management company over at Sugarbush and they said that it has been busier than they have ever seen this week. Something like 9,500 people yesterday, if I heard correctly.

Killington the most crowded I've ever seen it in 8 years and more people coming. Cars were parked on both sides of the access road down almost to the Basin/Lookout and traffic jams for 2 hours trying to get out of the lodge area. After the pitifulness that was last year, this is fantastic.

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Black Mt (NH) is opening up the peak tomorrow, 5 trials that are all virgin and they are reporting 6" so far today and 30" in the past serveral days.I love the old school atmosphere there after grewing up at Mohawk, Sundown, Catamount, Brodie and BE. bringing my daughter and BF. Heading out a 7 from N Conway to be first chair.

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I have never seen sugarbush as busy as the last few days. Will be skiing mt ellen tomorrow to avoid the crowds.

And about the champlain powder vs. the synoptic snow, these are good problems to have. I for one will never complain about any frozen crystalline precipitation. In fact, the offending post should be immediately purged so as not to anger the snow gods who have blessed us with such a bounty.

But it is different.

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Killington the most crowded I've ever seen it in 8 years and more people coming. Cars were parked on both sides of the access road down almost to the Basin/Lookout and traffic jams for 2 hours trying to get out of the lodge area. After the pitifulness that was last year, this is fantastic.

Great indeed. I skied Thursday and Friday and it was wonderful. It was certainly crowded at the normal spots (K1/Skye quad/etc) but once you got away from the bottlenecks it was awesome.

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Some photos I took yesterday... you just never know what you'll find when you first head up the chair in the morning.

This is 7:30am on Mansfield (we open earliest in the east for the locals to get runs in as the sun comes up, then they can go to work)...but this time of year at 7:30am it can still be pretty dark and catch the sunrise.

Mount Washington is on the left.

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The vertebrae of the Spine of the Green Mountains.

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Jay Peak (and Big Jay) are dead center on the horizon.

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