Matt Duffy
New member
<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/17/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>It was light. It was fluffy. It was fresh smokey powder at Mt Orford. It fell hard all day, accumilating about a foot or so, with more than that in some woodsy, ledgey and breathtaking passages. The whole entourage was treated to a shockingly wild land of wintry, snowy trails & trees; powder up to our knees, boulders, dips & rolls; ledges, cliffs & knolls. <BR> <BR>Orford is a small bundle of dynamite that delivers a big, booming box of thrill & packets of excitement. The 1700'+ of vertical is not wasted at all; nearly every bit of it provides something to decend with delight. <BR> <BR>We arrived a little late due to our long drive through "the good weather." The roads contained blowing, drifted snow, packed powder & the traffic was slow. We arrived and carried our stuff through whirling, hard falling snow to the lodge where we bought our tickets for a paltry $36 CAN. First run, we skied the zany madcap of a liftline under the summit double <BR>for it's entire length. It was a warmup full of out-of-the-blue, rising and falling ledges, unpredictable terrain with drop offs below the drop offs. I might not've been quite prepared for that right off; it was like starting the car in the cold, dead of winter and immediatly throwing it in gear & slamming the accelerator to the floor. I was looking through the frosty windshield, often turning at the last minute over a drop and landing on the staircaise below it while hanging on and stalling out; coasting down over the following barely controlled thumps of drop drop drop drop, stop. This run quickly got the juices flowing. <BR> <BR>On over to the Giroux quad where we found splendor. One of those triple black glades, I think it was called "Boogie". Deep untracked through the woods over big, snowy boulders with a whoosh, pffffffft, silence in the air, and kaaa-poof! YEEHA!! That land of pillowy landings with grand face shots was just right. I literally got a mouthful of snow while pointing down in a steep landing, gaining momentum while parting some powder. It melted in my mouth like cotton candy. I took deep breaths with a big, wide open grin. That snow was laughing gas! <BR> <BR>After that we found the rest of the crew at the bottom of the quad. As a group of 10 or 12 people we went back to that same region, this time to an area a little more to the left. I believe this one was "Dubreuil". Not sure of it's literal translation, but to me it is french for "Kick ass, riotous ride over huge drops in undulating woods through deep, light, untouched powder". I don't think we practiced proper etiquette on this one. Jerm forged ahead with aerial propulsion and I soon followed; promptly leaving our group in the dust. Hey, it was untouched champagne powder with awesome terrain- what do you expect? I believe Mike & maybe others followed suit, but none of us were looking back for we were in a state of ecstasy. I'll never ever tire of telling about whipping around and floating through amazing powder-stealing away it's virginity. Flying over big drops, splashing down with powder eruptions and zipping to and fro with hilarious glee. This is living! This was still early in the day! The group splintered apart at lunch time. I was 1/3 of a trio that had a great time exploring this sparkling, wild secret of a mountain. We pretty much covered all the outragous ground we could find. We kept finding diverse varieties of cliff bands where we scouted & spotted landing zones for each other. We zoomed through gladed powder passages & assorted interesting little zones of rock gardens & dippy, rolling terrain. <BR>We spent the latter runs of the day getting very familiar with that liftline under the summit double. There was a seemingly limitless selection of rolling paths, drops, and steeps to connect together for many, many combinations & ways to ski it. There was this one jump right next to a lift tower.... I'm having a difficult time finding the right words. It required a <BR>spotter, for the landing zone was blind; completely out of sight over the horizon of the jump. It didn't feel like a jump. It was more like going over a launching pad & taking flight in slow motion. A period of hang time was achievable in which time just slows down; almost to a standstill. <BR> <BR>This is breath taking, like floating through outer space where there is no gravity... Here comes the ground... Time is coming back to normal speed... Exhale... YES!!!!!! <BR> <BR>Before we knew it, we passed by all the closed lifts at the bottom; it was 4 o'clock. It was over before we wanted it to be, but we made some memories that will never end. All of us got back together inside and shared thoughts of this amazing day over a few tall canadian beers. It was a unanimous consensus among everyone that Orford packed a much, much bigger punch than expected.