Thursday was an unplanned day at Smuggs. We took the ferry across Lake Champlain Wednesday night and slept in Burlington, and headed up to the hill Thursday morning. <BR> <BR>The snow was better than during our entire week in Lake Placid, both in quantity and quality, despite the rain that sprinkled for a time Wednesday from Madonna I's midstation on down. Up top, there was an easy 6" or so of new that was surpringly light, given the proximity of the rain line. The lower mountain had a light crust below a couple of inches of new. <BR> <BR>I followed FTO chatter Timaaah around for the day in between occasional runs with Patricia, who was trying out her new Atomic Beta Carve 99.9 cm snow blades that she bought as we left Placid (she loved 'em). Tim and I hit Drifter Woods from two separate entrances (a mix of light crust, and scratchy where tracked), Hershey Highway (the highlight of my whole week, with deep untracked), Hershey Squirts and the Back Bowls, on which chatter Ericmorton accompanied us. <BR> <BR>It seemed to get chillier as the afternoon wore on, and my last run around 2:30 was the first one on which I was cold. We foolishly went exploring behind the Drifter fence, and when that cliffed out with a 50-foot drop, we could find no escape route so we ended up climbing back out onto Drifter. Exhausted, Patricia and I packed it up and headed for the airport.