The video from this weekend should be done and posted within a day or two. For the moment, we're on Jiminy's web page Photo of the Day (<A HREF="http://www.jiminypeak.com/webcam/" TARGET="_blank">http://www.jiminypeak.com/webcam/)</A> until they replace it with today's photo. <BR> <BR>Saturday, Berkshire East was only on the leading edge of the storm, and it was Day One of their operation. When the humidity moved in Friday night, they went from making snow to making a mess. As a result, conditions on their (very) limited open terrain varied widely, from delightful fluff to death cookies from hell. They put on a good effort to get it together, though, and the pending storm seemed the ticket to really get them going. They only had about 6" new when we left early afternoon, but the snowfall was intensifying with the arriving storm. <BR> <BR>It's a good thing that FTO Contributing Writer Dan Barron had his brand-new AWD Volvo Cross-Country, for if we had either of my vehicles I don't think that we would have made it home on Saturday night -- even though both have snow tires on all 4 paws. From N Adams to Grafton, the new snowpack went from about 6" to easily 24". I fell asleep in N Adams, and was awakened by a jolt at the top of Petersburg Pass when Dan couldn't figure out exactly where the road went. Coming down into Petersburg, Dan got off the side road leading to 22 because Rte 2 continuing westbound looked like a snow-covered field -- he didn't think that it could possibly be the road. <BR> <BR>Yesterday at Jiminy, they of course groomed everything that was open, save for Ace of Spades (and possibly Grand Slam, which was cut-up chowder when we first hit it on the next to last run of the day). We fortunately were with the patrol starting with "First Chair" at 8:00 before the 8:30 opening, so ropes were a non-issue to prevent our mission of videotaping powder scenes until our patrol chaperones went on to other work around 10:30 or so. A short hike up the closed Merry-Go-Round brought us to the top of Lower Exhibition, where we found the perfect pitch and perfect snow. Great shots, including my turns of the day. <BR> <BR>Next run we planned to return to Lower Exhibition via a hideously windscoured Upper Whirlaway. We only had a 20 foot-wide strip of windwhipped snow on skier's right to work with, and while it looked delightful, it wasn't as it alternated without warning between airy fluff and thick wind sludge. We were filming one skier at a time, and without fail each one blew up 3/4 of the way down -- it'll make for some fun footage in the finished film. The Assistant Patrol Director bought it in slow-mo right under the lift, to the jeers of everyone overhead. Then, 20 feet later as he was talking about falling to the cameraman, he blew it again and couldn't get up from swimming in the snow. <BR> <BR>We had just finished our second shoot on Lower Ex when word came in that the patrol director wanted us to stop using closed terrain as the public was now heading up the hill. What to do? Turn closed terrain into open terrain. We headed to Ace of Spades to remove the rope. The snow there was perfect, but the terrain wasn't. Even the lowermost pitch, steepest of the trail, was insufficient to allow us to maintain forward momentum. We shot the world's slowest powder turns over there. <BR> <BR>We spent the rest of the day skiing places where we shouldn't have been, but left at 2:30 with huge grins and sore legs. The woods aren't ready, as we learned the hard way, yet we kept "exploring" anyway -- it felt good to be a rabbit scampering through the forest again. <BR> <BR>Got a few extremely low-res photos here taken by capturing the preview window of our video editing program. Low-res and tiny image dimensions, yes, but they still effectively depict what we had yesterday: <BR> <BR>Yours truly on Lower Ex: <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3053.jpg" ALT="Marc Guido on Lower Exhibition"> <BR> <BR>Yours truly again on Ace of Spades: <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3054.jpg" ALT="Marc Guido on Ace of Spades"> <BR> <BR>Dan Barron on Ace of Spades: <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3055.jpg" ALT="Dan Barron on Ace of Spades"> <BR> <BR>Todd Fisher on Ace of Spades: <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3056.jpg" ALT="Todd Fisher on Ace of Spades"> <BR> <BR>Jiminy Peak Asst. Patrol Director Mike Noyes on Ace of Spades: <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3057.jpg" ALT="Jiminy Peak Asst. Patrol Director Mike Noyes on Ace of Spades"> <BR> <BR>Todd Fisher off-piste: <BR><IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/messages/8/3058.jpg" ALT="Todd Fisher off-piste">
">)