Mark Renson
New member
On Sunday morning, I was up shovelling snow in the dark at 6:15AM at the Hartford Ski Club. After completing that, I shuffled over to Mission Control at 7:00AM and got the assignment of .... shovelling more snow! This was rewarded with a Milk Run. Quacky III was outstanding and after setting up some more 'boo, 4 or 5 of us had an outrageous run down the virgin Grand Canyon!!! I had to straight line much of it and got some great face shots in the process! The next run <BR>was trail check. I let Geordie pick ahead of me as he had received the Patroller of The Year award .... plus I knew that whatever he had left me would be great, anyway. I got my old favorite trail check run, Panther AND FACE SHOTS!! <BR> <BR>I forget much of what happened during the rest of the day as it became a huge white blur. We suspect that by the end of the day, we had a storm total of 28" and it was still snowing hard when I left MRG at 5:30PM. Where do I begin to describe the rest of this day? <BR> <BR>There was still not much of a true base, so I did skied more cautiously than usual. Other than that, it was epic. <BR> <BR>From what I recall, I got the day's standard of knee-to-thigh deep early on on upper Chipmunk. I ran into friends and guided them down Quacky and into lower Gazelle Woods and then I proceeded to lose them. I then caught up with them again. Fantastic runs were had down upper Canyon, Waterfall, Rockefeller's (the latter 2, I usually dislike, but they skied better than I have ever seen them ski and they did not have any snowmaking on them). Lower Glade was the best I ever saw it with monster face shots and crotch deep fluff and ditto for upper Glade. <BR> <BR>I did sample Gazelle Woods and broke a pole when I planted it into some hidden submerged forest debris. Folks, if there is one lesson to be learned from today, it is that the "base" still was not fully developed and that woods skiing is dangerous for the most part. I was glad that only my poles broke and not my leg. <BR> <BR>Birdland got better as the day went on, thanx to the not-so-BRUTAL GROOMING that was being buried by the heavy snowfall. <BR> <BR>I ran into Lars later in the day and I mentioned that I had skied just about everything and then he mentioned Periwinkle Bowl which reminded me that I had not tried that. That was a critical reminder for me! We then went to upper Chipmunk and we still got knee-to-thigh deep cut up powder at 3:00PM. <BR> <BR>Sweep was sweet, especially through Birdland. <BR> <BR> Fantastic opening day and I have understated everything ...... and just think, IT'S ONLY DECEMBER 7th !!!!!!