Chromer
New member
TeleLobsterGrrrl, Moxie Dawg and I drove up to Greenville to ski Big Squaw today. There was lots of untracked left on the main mountain. Of course not having a lift probably has something to do with it. Sad to see, that. All the chairs from the double are stacked next to the lift base. The summit warming hut is also gone - that was a bit of a surprise.
Anyway, we skinned up West Branch to the top of the double lift. Some wonderful soul had already set a skin track. Some less wonderful soul had subsequently walked up it which meant setting new switchbacks on the steeper pitches. Hard work breaking trail, the snow was fairly dense. A huge "thank you" for whoever set the original track.
I can't remember the name of what we skied down. Skiers left off the chair. It was windpack at the top, but after a couple hundred vertical feet it softened up nicely. Some good turns in there, nothing more than about knee deep -- snow's too dense. Still, it's been a long, long time since I've had knee-deep turns. The 1750 verts were over far too soon.
We stopped in to the lodge for a beer and to get the local scuttlebutt. Supposedly the owner has sold a couple of his businesses in Florida and will be moving up to Greenville this summer, at which point he'll be putting some money into the mountain. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it. Local businesses have been feeling the lack of decent maintenance and operations at the ski area, which is a sad thing. It's not exactly a prosperous area.
Anyway, we skinned up West Branch to the top of the double lift. Some wonderful soul had already set a skin track. Some less wonderful soul had subsequently walked up it which meant setting new switchbacks on the steeper pitches. Hard work breaking trail, the snow was fairly dense. A huge "thank you" for whoever set the original track.
I can't remember the name of what we skied down. Skiers left off the chair. It was windpack at the top, but after a couple hundred vertical feet it softened up nicely. Some good turns in there, nothing more than about knee deep -- snow's too dense. Still, it's been a long, long time since I've had knee-deep turns. The 1750 verts were over far too soon.
We stopped in to the lodge for a beer and to get the local scuttlebutt. Supposedly the owner has sold a couple of his businesses in Florida and will be moving up to Greenville this summer, at which point he'll be putting some money into the mountain. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it. Local businesses have been feeling the lack of decent maintenance and operations at the ski area, which is a sad thing. It's not exactly a prosperous area.
