Sharon
New member
With the storm arriving early friday, I opted for the thursday departure and had a quick and dry drive to North Creek. <BR> <BR>Friday dawned with 3 fresh inches and snow still falling. I got up to the mountain and on one of the first gondolas at 8:30. <BR> <BR>There was not a ton of snow, maybe 4-6" on the mountain, but there was a lot of fresh to be tracked up. For 2 hours I had no trouble finding fresh snow on the trails. I took a run on every black diamond and double black that I could find, each one with at least a swath of untracked on the side for my taking. I hit both Rumour and Lies before anyone else besides the ski patrol. The headwalls were a bit daunting, as the wind blew the snow upward exposing the man-made headwall cover...a chalky white wall. Once below this firm, steep, yet carveable obstacle, the bumps were sweet. They were covered with 4" of fresh snow. <BR> <BR>There was hardly anyone there and all my friends went to work, so it was just me and my MP3 player in my own little euphoric world of skiing to the music. <BR> <BR>One of my friends was at work on the ski patrol. I spotted him opening trails on the mountain from the lift. Yelled down to him and he waited for me at the Straightbrook quad. We took a coupla runs together. We did a shot in the woods, who's name I cannot recall (off Lower Darby). It was very sweet. I didn't feel comfortable skiing in the woods alone earlier in the day and with so much nice untouched snow on the trails there was not much of a need to, until now. It was 2 hours later and most of the trails were tracked up, so when my friend had to get back to the patrol shack, I was on my own. "What the hell", I said to myself. I'm not going to deny myself some fun runs in the trees just because I'm alone. Life is full of risks. I figured this was definitely worth it. I decided it would be safer to not to go on the 'off the map' trails and stick to the named glades. Straightbrook and Chatiemac glades were in good shape, though the new snow just barely covered some exposed rock, which I re-exposed. I skied as lightly as I could to keep my new skis from damage. There was plenty of snow in there to enjoy. <BR> <BR>I had been out on the mountain for more than 3 hours and decided it was time to go in for a break. So I decided to take Steilhang down. Unfortunately the High Peaks chair was not running, so I cruised down to the quad. I stopped at the Saddle Lodge for a grilled cheese sammich and a cup o coffee. <BR> <BR>The snow had turned to a mixed bag of precipitation types. The rain would freeze immediately to your goggles. I decided a run in the woods down to the gondola was in order. So I did Twister Glades. Wow, it was really beautiful in there and I enjoyed a nice long cruise down through the woods to the base area. I did have to stop a few times to clear the ice from my goggles. <BR> <BR>I figured one ride up and I'll see how the weather is before I decide to bail on account of the lack of visibility. <BR> <BR>As I skied down Pine Knot, completely blind, I thought it was crazy to stay out. But I needed another tree run, so I boarded the Straightbrook quad with a local guy named Miles. <BR> <BR>I took a run with Miles and we cut up some freshly formed crust. Our jackets and pants were totally encased in ice. It was necessary to stop and scrape our goggles pretty often. The sound of my skis breaking the crust was indescribable. Almost a ripping sound. <BR> <BR>I had skied the best snow of the day and sadly the conditions were worsening, so I decided to bid farewell to Miles and head on down. It was nearly 2pm and I was satisfied with my day of skiing and knew I had 2 more days of skiing ahead of me, as the weekend had not yet officially begun. <BR> <BR>This ended a 3 day binge of fresh snow for the week. A weekend of crust was ahead. Look for my report on Magic Mountain in a few weeks on the resort features on this website as well as the video. <BR> <BR>I'm not going to write much about Magic in this forum. I'll leave it to Guido.