Glazed and confuzed: the aftermath

Sharon

Sharon

New member
twas a great day for domestic duties. was very productive while it poured torrents of liquid and frozen precip with temps hovering near freezing

I checked the Greek Peak webcam at 10am and people were skiing. Thought about going out there to enjoy the soft snow, but the radar revealed heavy precip to come, and the radar doesn't lie.

Pix from 5pm 3/8/08

http://tinyurl.com/2qc4ud
 
The bright sunshine called me out. I was not certain what type of foot travel I would be doing today. Dust on breakable crust seemed to be the dominant surface covering. Might have gone to Greek Peak to ski on man-managed surfaces, but visions of boiler plate with a dusting was what I had imagined out in Cortland County. I decided to check out the nearby State Forest. At least the unplowed roads had a decent base and snowmobiles had surely "groomed" it out. Didn't use the snowshoes. Skinny skis did the trick.

The glazed forest was something to behold. Flip through the slide show quickly to get an idea. http://tinyurl.com/yu9td5

The skiing was somewhat marginal. Imagine 2-4" of wet snow, glazed over with a good half-inch of ice with 1" of fluff on top that was windblown into some places and away from others. Skiing on the broken up snowmobile path was very slippery. Not much kick, but lots of glide. Uphill was best on untracked surfaces. Downhill was very fast no matter where you were, but faster on the broken up ice.

I was first a little uncertain about going off the forest roads, mostly because so many trees and limbs were down and ice-laden trees were creaking ominously in the wind. Conditions dictated that a jaunt through the woods was in order so I skipped over to the Finger Lakes Trail keeping my eyes up for falling vegetation and ice. Many trees were down some places required some tight maneuvers to get through, but overall the skiing in the woods was better than on the snowmobile trail.

I got home and the sun was still quite high in the sky, even though the clock read near dinner time. I took out a reclining deck chair and basked in the sun with a beer and all was good.
 

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Nice pix!

I drove by GP a few hours ago on my way back to NJ, wanting to take advantage of the extra sunlight, but figured it'd be scraped down to the bone by then.
 
The word was that Greek Peak was very good skiing. I was quite shocked myself. But my friend was there and said it was surprisingly excellent. He even used the term "epic" but I think that was probably an overstatement. At first I thought he was being sarcastic, but he said there were a few inches of fresh snow, blown into drifts up to a foot deep (I'm sure there was a little exaggeration on the actual depth...we didn't get more than a couple of inches). He said the base was "fuzzy" which meant carveable. Doesn't sound "epic" to me, but it might have been very good, considering all that rain.

I considered going up there, but I did have visions of dust on crust. I also thought the xc skiing was going to be treacherous, but it was surprisingly good.
 
Damn. I would've been very happy with "carvable"... and it didn't even start getting dark until 7:15 last night.
:evil:
 
Damn. I would've been very happy with "carvable"... and it didn't even start getting dark until 7:15 last night.
Click to expand...

you could have purchased a lift ticket for $16 after 6pm for an hour's worth of skiing...would've been worth it.
 
I drove by at 4 pm and would've gladly paid for the $28 night skiing ticket to ski three or so hours.

Too bad, I like going to Greek Peak once or twice a season... for a molehill, it's got some fun trails.
 
Wonderful photos, thanks!
We didn't have the ice in Monroe County. There must have been some, as it rained on Saturday, but we had enough snow for some nice XC at Mendon Ponds.
Tom
 
I was at Greek Peak on Saturday. It was Hope On The Slopes day. It rained all morning, there was a break in the afternoon followed by freezing rain/ sleet. The snow began around ten o'clock.

I tried to leave around 2am. I had the parking brake on in my car, it froze. Under normal conditions, there is friction between the tires and the road to force the wheel to spin. With frozen rain covered with snow the friction was nill. I pulled onto 392 and headed for Marathon. I was barely moving and my car was all over the road. I would not be surprised if one or more wheels was not spinning at all. I made it to the old Rafters parking lot. I was about to leave the car there and hike back to Greek. I decided to run the car back and forth in the lot for about 15 minutes. This freed up the brakes. The half mile ride back was interesting. Wind gusts caused white-out conditions several times.

Once safley back in the lot, I slept in the car until 8am. After stopping at the Taverna for breakfast, I hit the slopes around 8:45. I would have to say Odyssey was in about as nice condition as I have seen all season. There was 5 to 6 inches on top of groomed. This was quite a contrast to the ungroomed crust of the previous morning. Too bad demo day was the day before.

To anyone who skied the entire 24 hours of the event, my hat is off to you. The conditions were horendous, steady cold rain, freezing rain, to 17 degrees and blizzard like in the wee hours. If I did not have a spare jacket and gloves, I would have had trouble going as long as I did. During a break at Orions Pub, I noticed I had prune fingers. It reminded me of playing in the tub too long in my childhood.
 
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