Greek Peak 3/13/07

Sharon

Sharon

New member
At 4pm my cell phone rings. It's Alexis and she wants to know if I'm going to Greek Peak.

I told her that my ski stuff was at home (20 min in the opposite direction of GP) and I had a 7pm massage. No can do.

I left my office a few minutes later and the 65 degree sunshine hits me. I got to my car, and found both pairs of ski boots and 2 pairs of skis. My ski pants and seasons pass were at home and all I was dressed in was a cotton shirt and khaki chinos with low-cut socks.

I called Alexis back and told her that I could meet her at Greek Peak in 30 minutes.

At 4:45 I was riding the lift in my cotton work clothes, telemark skis attached at the toes of my Veloces with Alexis on snowboard beside me.

Conditions were quite excellent creamed corn. The best skiing was at Chair 4 where the sun was shining throughout the evening. Zeus and Hercules skied better than usual. Both are usually icy and bulletproof with steep headwalls. Today they were soft and creamy, perfectly carveable. T-turns were so easy in these conditions.

I ran into some friends, all beaming from the great spring skiing. One of them was also in work clothes, cotton pants and a button down shirt. I saw a few people in shorts and plenty of kids in t-shirts.

Got to my massage just in time, with my quads pretty worked. Didn't eat dinner until 10pm. Going to bed tired, relaxed and with a smile on my face.

Sometimes the best ski days are unplanned.
 
There was a break in the weather today around 4:30. I was tempted to go back to GP. Didn't go because I had a bunch of stuff I had to do and meet up with friends for dinner. David...how was it?
 
Well, that creamy corn you mentioned was indeed still present, but it had turned to a corn product, not the pure form. Which? Take your pick:

1. For me, betraying my Southern roots, it was like day-old cold grits. It's nice and creamy fresh but then it becomesa congealed, nasty mess.

2. To honor our region's Italian heritage, one could call it polenta. White polenta: Tasty under the right circumstances and the right sauce, but there's a texture issue.

Riding up 1A, I saw no one on Iliad and wondered why. From a distance it looked inviting, all bumpy and fun-looking, though with some surprisingly large bare spots on the groomed, western half. I tried it and quickly learned why no one was on it. It was like the aforementioned cold grits. It was a ski-sucking mess. Skis sink into it and disappear. In spots it was virtually impossible to turn in. The same was true of the bumps on Elysian Fields, which also had the problem of bare spots on some of the eastern moguls' troughs.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play? Well, it wasn't all awful. It didn't rain. And the wind was blowing some fog over the top of the hill, and with the lights on, it looked like something out of a horror movie, all spooky and gloomy and foreboding. The groomed part of Fields/Stoic and Alcemene were not bad, though a big chattery. There was a bit of loose corn here and there if you could find it. Odyssey was the nicest trail, though there were some race gates set up for practice. I only had one run on it then wandered around a bit; when I came back it was mysteriously roped off, but that one turned out to have been the best run of the night. I was on the freeheel set up, so it was fun. I'm getting the hang of tele, I think. (Chair 4, and thus Zeus and Hercules, were closed; I didn't bother with Chair 2.)

To sum up: It's astounding to see a formerly deep base shrink so quickly, but then, 65 degrees, rain, and wind will do that, I suppose. On the other hand, if there is some snow, at least a few inches, there is enough base remaining so that I could see all the trails being reopened for the weekend. It's not impossible. Or when it turns warm and sunny again, Iliad will probably loosen up and be fun on the bumps. If the cold comes but the snow doesn't materialize, well, it might be a good weekend to tune-up the mountain bike.

I'm afraid the whole Northeast is like this. I was planning to go to SugarMadBushGlen next weekend, but I might head up for one day this weekend, instead -- I already have a Sugarbush voucher and an open-ended lodge reservation -- as there's a concert here in town I'd like to get to next week. I guess it's one of those deals where as long as you keep your expectations reasonable, you'll be satisfied. The same can be said of Greek Peak in late March.
 
It will all be fixed this weekend.

No matter where you ski, it should be improved.

Heading to VT...too bad you couldn't join me.
 
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