Looon mtn, 12-17 ... mad river glen, 12-18

[joegm]

mon at loon....they had the exact same trail count after the snow storm that they did all last week... wind skinned 4 inches on top of the 1 inch thick sleet crust that formed from sunday...the groomed runs were ok packed super dry sticky powder... anything no groomed was pretty much unskiable...the place is pathetic in how they are managing their terrain this year... they should have 90 % of the runs open .. they have the snow... it's piled up in whales on runs like double dipper and angel st.. for some inexplicable reason, all that terrain is not open... ridiculous

we couldn't take it and decided to roll the dice that some of the lines were skiied in a little after the lift's were down on monday... well worth it...the best non spring day i can remember in over 2 years...
mad river glen is surreal....when mad river glen is right, it is the best place to ski hands down... i just don't get there enough for various reasons but oh my god , that place is unreal when it is right...
100% open... i'm not making any claims to know the place like some others here , but from what we saw, there was not a line on that hill that was not skiable on or off piste except for the last section under the single and i am not sure if they do open that or not ....
pretty much blue sky all day .. no wind and about 15 f....chute , paradise and fall line 2 times each, antelope t to b once and then we just traded off on the what was for us the 2 lines of the day.. of the double it was quacky to upper canyon to grand canyon to one way ...the first three had the sickest natural snow, natural formed, nice and tight rrght left bumps i have skied in i don't know how long.... and off the single it was catamount bowl to lynx to beaver...i just dont know what to say...i cannot believe how perfect the lines and snow are there right now...there is no ice anywhere on the hill.. if you are even thinking about going there in the next 2 days before the christmas crowds , i would stongly advise it...i think we skied over 75 % of our runs without skiing past anyone on the way down.... i counted no more than 50 cars in the lot....an amazing place when it is right and right now it is right...
unbeliveable

 

[Tony Crocker]

I can't see why anyone would waste time at a place like Loon when conditions are so epic a couple of hours north. There seems to be a consensus that even Sharon's 7 to 8 hour drive was well worth the effort.

 

[joegm]

tony u r absolutely right.. however, there was a reason for us why it played out like it did...everyone has their own reasons ... i have property at loon...there is a reason why i have it there that is kind of not relevant to the discussion... for this trip, we drove up to lincoln in a raging noreaster.. took 5 hours to get there .. normally takes two.. white knuckle driving all the way.. pulled in a midnight.. MRG is 3 hours away from lincoln....necessitates getting up at 5am.. normally no problem but it wasn;t gonna happen after the ride up...loon should not have been as bad as it was...this year the place has been an absolute embarrasment.... what the hell the management is doing there this year i have no idea but the place has been a debacle for about 3 weeks now... if you go to their web site they are claiming 85% open...it is one of many outright lies they have put out there this year...this is not the usual ski area fudging.. they are outright lying about this and numerous other things....they botched their new lift/expansion for reasons that i am not exactly sure of .. i have heard rumors but cannot substantiate any of them so i'm not gonna speculate... they had a major problem over the weekend with one of their main lifts...none of these things should have any bearing at all on the terrain management though...if loon had open what they should have , our original plan of loon on monday and MRG on tues would have been at least tolerable...what we saw on monday was unacceptable and turned it into a complete joke though... so i hear what you are saying...i just wish it was that simple for my situation...every year though i am really having less and less tolerance for this nonsense though and my crew and i are really going to be doing a lot of soul searching with some hard decisions maybe being in play...

 

[Patrick]

i think we skied over 75 % of our runs without skiing past anyone on the way down.... i counted no more than 50 cars in the lot....an amazing place when it is right and right now it is right...
unbeliveable

Parking was full on Monday, but it was still pretty quiet on the runs. Love that Single.

Really Epic right now... 8)