yak
New member
I made the trek up to VT on Tuesday evening with a few old friends. The worst driving was in MA heading out to our rendezvous point in East Longmeadow, took me almost 4 hours instead of 2. We arrived at Cedarbrook Motel/Condo's, our usual haunt around 9:30 with light snow and about 6 inches of fresh in the parking lot. We were stoked that the local report was calling for up to 20 inches, with the majority falling between 9 AM and 3PM on Wednesday.
Waking up to more light snow and another 3 inches, we made it to Bear mtn at 8:45, booted up, and jumped on the Skye Peak quad. First run under the chair was boot-deep freshies, and we quickly headed over the top and down a half tracked Superstar to proceed in lapping the K-1 about a dozen times with a few Canyon chairs thrown in. Most runs on the peak were holding about a foot of dense fresh powder, and with the snow and wind they were filling in a bit between runs, but we never saw that elusive 20 inches. At about 2:30 the snow changed to invisible wetness of some sort that left a thin ice layer forming on everything. It didn't look or feel like rain, but we were covered in a micro layer of ice. You had to scrape your goggles off halfway down to be able to see, and my skis kept slipping out of my hands in the gondi line because the tops were coated with ice. I guess the main event didn't push far enough North, because we had only saw another 3 inches of snow on the truck at the end of the day. Still an awesome day, and some new woods runs that I've never seen before.
On Thursday morning, as we were enjoying breakfast burritos at Chubby Muchacho's, Blackie the owner suggested that we ski Pico, since it doesn't operate on Mon-Wed. None of us had ever been there before, and we quickly decided to give it a shot. It was almost clear and definitely cold, and you could see smooth powder runs in every direction as we waited in the Golden Express line, only to find that there would be a delay in opening it. About 40 people simultaneously ducked the ropes and skated over to Knomes Knoll chair, where we proceeded to shred every ounce of fluffy shin to knee deep powder in the 3 laps it took before Golden opened. Once up top of Golden, we found that the Summit chair was on delay till about 11:00. We started lapping runs through the woods over in that direction and found more fresh snow. Each time we rode by the base of the Summit chair there would be a bigger crowd, but the official start was now 12:00. On our 4th lap by, they were loading chairs. The summit was more of the same, about a foot deep and not a track on it since the previous Sunday afternoon. It took about 3 hours for it to get tracked out, and we made our way down with weary legs at about 3:30 for the trek home. I've never seen an area where they locals have such a total disregard for every inbounds rope - not an inch of visible powder left intact.
Waking up to more light snow and another 3 inches, we made it to Bear mtn at 8:45, booted up, and jumped on the Skye Peak quad. First run under the chair was boot-deep freshies, and we quickly headed over the top and down a half tracked Superstar to proceed in lapping the K-1 about a dozen times with a few Canyon chairs thrown in. Most runs on the peak were holding about a foot of dense fresh powder, and with the snow and wind they were filling in a bit between runs, but we never saw that elusive 20 inches. At about 2:30 the snow changed to invisible wetness of some sort that left a thin ice layer forming on everything. It didn't look or feel like rain, but we were covered in a micro layer of ice. You had to scrape your goggles off halfway down to be able to see, and my skis kept slipping out of my hands in the gondi line because the tops were coated with ice. I guess the main event didn't push far enough North, because we had only saw another 3 inches of snow on the truck at the end of the day. Still an awesome day, and some new woods runs that I've never seen before.
On Thursday morning, as we were enjoying breakfast burritos at Chubby Muchacho's, Blackie the owner suggested that we ski Pico, since it doesn't operate on Mon-Wed. None of us had ever been there before, and we quickly decided to give it a shot. It was almost clear and definitely cold, and you could see smooth powder runs in every direction as we waited in the Golden Express line, only to find that there would be a delay in opening it. About 40 people simultaneously ducked the ropes and skated over to Knomes Knoll chair, where we proceeded to shred every ounce of fluffy shin to knee deep powder in the 3 laps it took before Golden opened. Once up top of Golden, we found that the Summit chair was on delay till about 11:00. We started lapping runs through the woods over in that direction and found more fresh snow. Each time we rode by the base of the Summit chair there would be a bigger crowd, but the official start was now 12:00. On our 4th lap by, they were loading chairs. The summit was more of the same, about a foot deep and not a track on it since the previous Sunday afternoon. It took about 3 hours for it to get tracked out, and we made our way down with weary legs at about 3:30 for the trek home. I've never seen an area where they locals have such a total disregard for every inbounds rope - not an inch of visible powder left intact.
