Took the morning (and now a good chunk of the afternoon!) off to go over to Greek this morning. Waited the week out to slack off since they were opening the chair 5 area again as of today.
Started out by lift 1A and did two runs, one down Iliad and one down Alcmene. I had decided to take out my K2 Public Enemies since I hope to ski them in Vermont this weekend and wanted to get a feel for them again before then. Initial impressions of my first two runs was that Greek Peak was not packed powder by any means, but much more hard pack. Of course, central NY packed powder usually equals hard pack.
I set out on my third run to cross over the mountain on some green trails and took lift 4 back up to the top of the eastern area. Lift 5 was indeed running, so I did several runs down Mars Hill, the only trail they had opened on that side. Conditions were also pretty hard, but they had left one half of the trail ungroomed and natural which still had about 3 or 4 inches of loose snow on it (most of it untracked). I was a bit leery at first that I'd hit something since there couldn't have been more than maybe 8 inches of snow around, but other than for being pretty bumpy, I didn't manage to break through to anything in 3 runs.
Riding the damn triple without a foot rest had my legs cramping pretty bad, so I decided to work my way back across the mountain to the other base area. It was quite a site to see the clear cutting they did above the lift to hopefully expand soon. The extra trails on the east side of their ski area would help spread the place out a bit more. Snow was being blown heavily on Hercules, the new black trail they cut, and I imagine it will be open by this weekend. Pitch looks really nice and I imagine I'll get a chance to ski it next week. Zeus was no where near ready (no base on it yet). I took two runs in the chair 4 area, Trojan was decent and not quite as hard as some of the first trails I was on.
Headed back down and found that lift 2 was now running, so I lapped the medium feature terrain park a few times. I don't like railing my skis, but do enjoy jumps and an occasional box.
Finally, did a few more runs off Lift 1A. Conditions had softened up a good bit with the sun and temperatures in the mid to upper 20s (versus the teens in the morning). Checked out Odyssey which had some of the best overall snow on it I saw at the mountain. Also skied the moguls off of Elysian Fields. There were a few places that the troughs were showing dirt, but you could easily avoid them.
Overall, pretty nice 3 hour marathon this morning. If we could just squeeze out 6 to 12 inches of natural snow, everything would be in so much better shape.
I'll post trip reports from Stowe on Sunday and Killington on Monday and try to have my fiancee take some pictures of myself falling down Goat and Outer Limits.
-Craig
Started out by lift 1A and did two runs, one down Iliad and one down Alcmene. I had decided to take out my K2 Public Enemies since I hope to ski them in Vermont this weekend and wanted to get a feel for them again before then. Initial impressions of my first two runs was that Greek Peak was not packed powder by any means, but much more hard pack. Of course, central NY packed powder usually equals hard pack.
I set out on my third run to cross over the mountain on some green trails and took lift 4 back up to the top of the eastern area. Lift 5 was indeed running, so I did several runs down Mars Hill, the only trail they had opened on that side. Conditions were also pretty hard, but they had left one half of the trail ungroomed and natural which still had about 3 or 4 inches of loose snow on it (most of it untracked). I was a bit leery at first that I'd hit something since there couldn't have been more than maybe 8 inches of snow around, but other than for being pretty bumpy, I didn't manage to break through to anything in 3 runs.
Riding the damn triple without a foot rest had my legs cramping pretty bad, so I decided to work my way back across the mountain to the other base area. It was quite a site to see the clear cutting they did above the lift to hopefully expand soon. The extra trails on the east side of their ski area would help spread the place out a bit more. Snow was being blown heavily on Hercules, the new black trail they cut, and I imagine it will be open by this weekend. Pitch looks really nice and I imagine I'll get a chance to ski it next week. Zeus was no where near ready (no base on it yet). I took two runs in the chair 4 area, Trojan was decent and not quite as hard as some of the first trails I was on.
Headed back down and found that lift 2 was now running, so I lapped the medium feature terrain park a few times. I don't like railing my skis, but do enjoy jumps and an occasional box.
Finally, did a few more runs off Lift 1A. Conditions had softened up a good bit with the sun and temperatures in the mid to upper 20s (versus the teens in the morning). Checked out Odyssey which had some of the best overall snow on it I saw at the mountain. Also skied the moguls off of Elysian Fields. There were a few places that the troughs were showing dirt, but you could easily avoid them.
Overall, pretty nice 3 hour marathon this morning. If we could just squeeze out 6 to 12 inches of natural snow, everything would be in so much better shape.
I'll post trip reports from Stowe on Sunday and Killington on Monday and try to have my fiancee take some pictures of myself falling down Goat and Outer Limits.
-Craig
