Mad River Glen 12/24/12 - Opening Day

flyover

Active member
I can’t help but notice that even with FTO’s legions of evangelical eastern posters it has taken some guy from Minneapolis to write up MRG’s opening day.

I have no photographic proof of just how good the skiing at MRG was for opening day because my wife bogarted the camera in order to capture moments with extended family. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

MRG’s opening day brought another 3-4 inches on top of the Saturday night’s snow. Everything that matters was open. Only the racing/practice slope was closed. Coverage was excellent mountain-wide with a few easily avoided early-season hazards, such as open water bars, in the lower elevations. Conditions at MRG were superior to those at Sugarbush on Sunday. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10429 The all-natural snow and no skier traffic immediately after Friday’s rain event seems to have resulted in a near complete absence of bullet-proof subsurface. Everything was edgeable. Cold temps and only intermittent sun have kept powder stashes well-preserved and even medium-pitched trail edges and tree islands offered bottomless turns.

Getting off the single chair at a leisurely 10 a.m., I warmed up with Catamount Bowl to Lower Antelope. Even at 10, I must have been about the 10th skier down Lower Antelope and about 50% of my run was untracked boot-deep fluff.

Next up were Chute, Creamery, Upper and Lower Glade, and Beaver. The subsurface crust was more evident on the steeper aspects of these runs, so each offered more variable surface conditions. I headed over to the double and discovered the trail edges and woods around Gazelle, Quacky, and Porcupine had not been extensively mined and offered relatively long stretches of very satisfying untracked until I broke for a quick lunch a little after noon.

Two more runs off the single chair took me down Paradise (which, not surprisingly, needed more coverage up top, but was delightful on the lower pitches)/Grand Canyon and Chute/Bunny. These combinations offered up a little of everything from the usual short ledge drops, to trail-side untracked and proto-moguls.

Liftlines were five minutes for the first couple of runs and were non-existent by 11:45 or so. The MRG vibe was, as usual, second to none.

Very satisfied, I split around 1:30 to tackle some last-minute, pre-Christmas chores and errands.

Today we have picture-perfect Christmas day snow showers. Thursday’s Nor’easter is now predicted to produce 15 to 25 inches at the higher elevations locally.
 
Nice! 15 to 25 coming.....hmmm.....MRG is one of the only Vermont resorts I have yet to hit..have to change that...
 
Trolling-at-Mtn-Point.jpg
 
Even I didn't think James was serious.

Or maybe you're suggest I was trolling. Lol.
 
Harvey44":3htsgwm7 said:
Even I didn't think James was serious.

Or maybe you're suggest I was trolling. Lol.

Yeah. Right.

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December 26 is when the thundering hordes usually arrive. Drive-up skiing before then is usually worthwhile if you know there's enough snow. As evidenced by the 8 days I've skied this December.
 
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