Mt. Snow VT 4/16/04 (*)

cd · Apr 18, 2004

Haven't posted many reports lately since I usually ski the same places and pick my days carefully enough that most reports would read the same, but I just had to check in with this. Faithful homey that I am, I went up to check out Mt. Snow yesterday. I know Snow has a bit of a milquetoast reputation but I've always staunchly defended the fact that it, like most places, has some great terrain if you know where to look. Anyway, in short the place is sporting some of the most letter perfect spring conditions I've ever seen there! On the front face, many trails are getting sparse near the bottom though most remain connected. The Upper Canyon>Standard run however is a sight to behold, *completely* covered from summit to base and side to side (and this is a trail that approaches 100 feet wide in places) with a layer that I'd estimate at least 6-8 feet deep in spots (I stood on bare ground next to the trail at one point and was looking *up* at the surface)! It looked to me like Snowdance was similarly covered except for a thinner return to the base area at the bottom, and the large rolls and jumps on the Un Blanco Gulch terrain park were pretty respectable as well. It was the North Face that was most impressive, however. Super-steep Ripcord has easily 10+ feet on it, wall to wall with perfectly formed bumps. Narrower old-school trails like Jaws were getting barren in places but Plummet was covered top to bottom and side to side, as was Freefall from what I could see, and likely Chute and/or Fallen Timbers as well. In the trees, even those far from the nearest snowgun, the turns were easy on a very solid 12-18" of base. Even River Run, which is low and basically just gets you from the top of the front face Canyon chair down to the N Face lifts (passing by the bottom of Ripcord among others), was completely covered all the way to and including the N face lift corral area. Everything was firm but topped with a perfect few inch layer of cream cheese. The rain earlier in the week does not appear to have affected the cover too much, and it looked like there may have even been a little snow mixed in at some point, judging from the pointy drift-like edges on the lee side of some N face moguls and the smoother looking snow in the troughs. Even with the warm weather predicted, it looks like the thickest trails could hold up for at least another week if not more. Yes indeed, with bluebird skies and warm sun w/ just enough cool breeze it was a letter perfect day except for one small thing....yep here comes that pesky asterisk... **Mt Snow has been CLOSED since Easter Sunday!!! Yep, I was self-powered yesterday as good ol ASC (Another Snowy Closing?) has seen fit to close up shop at Mt Snow earlier than I can ever remember in the many years it's been my home base. Went with a whimper too, as they said nothing about closing until barely 24 hours before the boom fell. Even then the only notice was a few words slipped into the web ski report ("Tommorrow we'll have x trails and x lifts...for our last day open.."), not being mentioned on their home page until after the fact. Pretty harsh even by the recent corporate belt/noose tightening standards, though there were clues as I did notice that, like last year, the reports tended to short-sell the actual observed conditions near the end (new snow counts disappearing, 'frozen granular' describing soft surfaces, etc). I've seen them stay open until May 1 with *way* less snow and skiers (my last lift-served days were a week earlier and while far from crowded, it certainly wasn't deserted by any stretch). Even a couple of years ago when they closed amid even better conditions it was a good two weeks later on the calendar. I didn't expect May, but 4/11 may be a record for earliest shutdown. Oh well, I no longer expect the hardcore faithful to factor into these things (yes, for now there's still Kmart), and I know that this continual lowering of bottom-line thresholds is a symptom of the times (hey, at least we can be thankful that a mountain can't be outsourced to India!). For all the beauty and solitude on the mt during my sojourn, it was also a bit eerie. Kinda like one of those Twilight Zone episodes, or the opening of the movie Vanilla Sky, where someone wakes up to find themselves the only inhabitant of an otherwise perfectly normal looking city! More than anything, it was a cryin shame to see the handiwork of an obviously dedicated and skilled band of snowmakers and groomers cast off like yesterdays lift ticket, the fruits of their labors left to rot in the sun. Remember, we're not talking about a few thinly-connected leftover snow piles, but a fully skiable mountain with multiple choices of thick, solid, complete trails! Here's a group of hard workers whose mission is to craft just such lasting letter-perfect conditions in the face of a less than stellar snow year, and though they came through with flying colors it was all for naught. Just seems like an awful lot of trouble (and water usage) to go to. It's funny, most of the season I'm deep in the woods studiously avoiding the world of snowmaking/grooming, but today walking uphill with the time to study it I really did appreciate what they do. Kudos to those in the trenches!

Mt. Snow VT 4/16/04 (*)

cd

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