MRG 1-30-07

[salida]

Happy Birthday MRG. Lift tickets were $3.50!

Snot-sicles. Single Chairs. And Solo Tele-chicas.

A phenomenal day. Super fun, a perfect day not to go to class. Left Greg's in Hanover at 6:30 and were to Mad River Glen by 8. Enough time to boot up in the lodge, grab a cup of Joe and get out to the lift line to be first and second up the single. Waited from about 8:30 to 9. While we were waiting a few patrollers came up and started a little banter:

Patroller 1: "If you haven't been out in a while, take it easy in the woods, quite a few snakes are lurking."
Patroller 2: "These two look like they'll take it easy. [grunt] Maybe go 99%, just front flips off towers 3 and 5."

Didn't quite know what to make of that, but we we're pretty proud and happy before we even started skiing.

Ended up skiing liftline, paradise, antelope, and then beyond paradise about 4 times. Quick sandwhich in the lodge. Paradise/fall-line. The double. Then while riding up the single again, we started some banter with a telechica a few chairs behind us. It all started while we were watching some dude on demo boards: Greg, "He is arcing those things from rock to rock." So we talked her into following us out beyond Paradise. She wanted a technical line and some pow... Ended up taking her down a line with 3 mandatories and quite a few tight spots. At the end of the run we might have got the best compliment all season: You guys are crazy, you hit everything

Man were we happy. Stellar day.

Multimedia:

Greg in a tight chute

Me in some mank

Two small mandatories

Greg on Tower 5

[Smootharc]

Stellar report and clips !

[Lucky Luke]

Me, Pat and Alex (my son) where there too! Here's a couple of pics! Excellent day!

[Patrick]

A phenomenal day. Super fun, a perfect day not to go to class.

Man were we happy. Stellar day.

I couldn't agree more...

A perfect day not to go to work also.

A classic day skiing with Lucky Luke and Lucky The Kid (aka Alex). Man, he's only 11 and skied with us all day. I guess someday we might be able to last as long our kids.

Here are the stats:

12 runs (single 7 times, Sunnyside 3 and Practice Slope twice)
Vertical: 6317m

[kcyanks1]

Ended up skiing liftline, paradise, antelope, and then beyond paradise about 4 times. Quick sandwhich in the lodge. Paradise/fall-line. The

Great report! How much more challenging is beyond Paradise / Octopus Garden than Paradise proper? Will you necessarily run into mandatory cliffs much harder than the not-always-mandatory waterfall on Paradise? (I'm not expecting details as to where to go, of course, just some general idea of difficulty level)

[Patrick]

How much more challenging

Unless I got it wrong...be ready to eat wood.

Tight and steep. Lucky Luke probably remember me getting my Rossi 7S 201s hitting something under the snow and me slidding downhill head first, flipping and self arresting myself just in time.

[salida]

How much more challenging is beyond Paradise / Octopus Garden than Paradise proper? Will you necessarily run into mandatory cliffs much harder than the not-always-mandatory waterfall on Paradise? (I'm not expecting details as to where to go, of course, just some general idea of difficulty level)

I would say quite a bit more difficult. It is a bit steeper (a few degrees) and the entrance (at least this time of year) requires climbing over downed trees, and hip sliding/grinding with edges down a big fallen timber. Once into the area the trail is no more than 250-300 cm's wide for roughly a few hundred vertical feet. Eventually it opens up a bit. The ice flows/cliffs are not that big 5-15 ft but require precise landings as the areas to land are not any bigger than the chutes that are skied above. Overall it is very technical, with turns that are not to be botched for fear of crashing into the trees. In general, it is damned good skiing and a hell of a lot of fun!!!

We'll post some more videos that give a better idea of terrain difficulty.

[Patrick]

In general, it is damned good skiing and a hell of a lot of fun!!!

I remember the last time I skied it (with 201), saying to myself, "This would be the ideal place to wear a helmet".

I can't believe we missed each other. I remember seeing the guy with the red helmet a few times. If only I would have known.

[salida]

I remember the last time I skied it (with 201), saying to myself, "This would be the ideal place to wear a helmet".

I can't believe we missed each other. I remember seeing the guy with the red helmet a few times. If only I would have known.

Patrick... To bad we missed each other. I'm sure you saw Greg and his red helmet. Needless to say it stands out. If you're planning some Tuckerman ravine days this spring let us know. I'm sure we'll be in the ravine quite a bit.

Porter

[kcyanks1]

How much more challenging is beyond Paradise / Octopus Garden than Paradise proper? Will you necessarily run into mandatory cliffs much harder than the not-always-mandatory waterfall on Paradise? (I'm not expecting details as to where to go, of course, just some general idea of difficulty level)

I would say quite a bit more difficult. It is a bit steeper (a few degrees) and the entrance (at least this time of year) requires climbing over downed trees, and hip sliding/grinding with edges down a big fallen timber. Once into the area the trail is no more than 250-300 cm's wide for roughly a few hundred vertical feet. Eventually it opens up a bit. The ice flows/cliffs are not that big 5-15 ft but require precise landings as the areas to land are not any bigger than the chutes that are skied above. Overall it is very technical, with turns that are not to be botched for fear of crashing into the trees. In general, it is damned good skiing and a hell of a lot of fun!!!

We'll post some more videos that give a better idea of terrain difficulty.

Thanks for the detail! The narrow chute sounds fun..the drops sound a bit intimidating. Maybe with more snow, and a guide who can take me to the smaller ones

[Patrick]

Here are the stats:

12 runs (single 7 times, Sunnyside 3 and Practice Slope twice)
Vertical: 6317m

For some reason, part of my original post dissapeared. So i'll try to rewrite what I said early this week.

So we started our first runs with Lucky The Kid on the single. We started easy...it went something like this.

1) Upper Antelope - Canyon
2) Partridge-Slalom Hill-Snail (on Sunnyside)
3) Paradise-Moodys-Upper Glades then Liftline just below Tower 10. We did combo a few times. Lucky The Kid skied Paradise 3 times. Conditions in Paradise were pretty good, tI've rarely seen the icefalls and jumps so high.

Other runs skied on or next to: Catamount Bowl which nice and bumped up probably had the best snow covered of the blacks. Lynx, Beaver, Chute, Panther/Gazelle, FallLine. We had some much fun, we did a few repeat.

Lucky The Kid was a skiing energeizer bunny. He just kept going and going. No easy stuff for him. Blacks or woods all the way down, over and over again.

[Patrick]

Here are some of favorites Lucky Luke's pics from that day. I was too lazy and didn't bother taking my camera out of his day.

Here are some of the single (last year of the original) and the Sunnyside double.

[Patrick]

Here is the last part.

Paradise, Single and some other stuff.