Mt. Snow, VT 1/27/00

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/28/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Work has kept me off the slopes for the last couple of weeks so a day trip to the North Face with the new snow was in order. I was hoping for the natural snow trails to still be sweet and I wasn't disappointed. I was on the Summit quad by 9:30. With temps in the single digits and a stiff wind coming down the main mountain it was a cold ride up. The sun was out the whole day but didn't warm thing up much. Helmets are useless when it's that cold. The report said only Fallen Timbers was groomed on the North Face. All the other trails didn't get the ASC signature. Kudos to ASC for leaving them alone. I did the McGroomed Fallen Timbers to warm up. The wind factor was much less on the North Face. Olympic has never been open when I've skied the North Face before because it is o'natural so I though I would give her a try. The top had some pine trees sticking through wind blown powder with a few rocks thrown in (they closed the top shortly after my first run down, why?). The rest was tracked out powder and small bumps. Not a bare spot to be found. Next run was Challenger. This is a classic winding narrow New England trail. Not very steep but very sweet. One of my favorites on the North Face. The very top section was pretty scrapped off which scared most people away but once you were past that it was heaven. Soft powdery bumps with little saplings sticking through. It's too bad they cut Freefall right though the middle of this trail. Same thing with P.D.F.. They cut Plummet (mctrail when groomed) right though the middle of a classic winding narrow natural snow trail. Blaspheme! P.D.F. had the same conditions as Challenger. Next up was Jaws. Jaws is another classic narrow trail that has a fairly steep section in the middle. Jaws was work. Huge mounds of powder that had been pushed around the day before. Jaws required jump turn. They put a rope up on the trail that leads to the top of Jaws from the North Face lift so you had to access it from Plummet. The bottom of Jaws has a double fall line on the skiers left which was all untracked but tough due to the size of the saplings growing there. It needs a little pruning. I had all of these trails to myself. Everyone was on the Mcgroomed Fallen Timbers until they roped it off in the afternoon to set up a race coarse. This forced everyone to ski on the ungroomed Olympic. You could see the disappointment in their faces that they were forced to ski a powder run. The woods off of Olympic had 15" of untracked POW. Heaven! It still wasn't bottomless though. The trees off of the skiers right on Freefall was pretty wind blown and the bottom section is a little to steep and tight for my novice tree skiing abilities. I went back to the main lodge around noon to drop off my CamelBak. Useless in those temperatures. I took Upper Ledge to Lower Ledge. Ungroomed and o'natural. Wind blown to knee deep POW. Back to the North Face I did several Challenger, P.D.F., Jaws, and Olympic until my whole body ached. My legs were total Jell-O by 3:00. Some other observations. The trails on the North Face that have snow making were mounds of pushed around powder with a hard icy man made base underneath The natural trails were much better. No lift lines at all with most of the people sitting in the lodge. They are charging $52 mid-week. Thank god for the Vermont Youth Corp. pass. There was lots of activity around the base area and on the mountain preparing for the Winter X-Games next week. Lots of tents and scaffolding everywhere. I had a great POW POW day on the North Face.