Whiteface Mt. 12/9

Jimski · Dec 12, 2000

Daughter Shana and I headed out a little late to hopefully let it warm up a little but that never really seemed to develop as the day wore on. We had to park almost out to the main highway and even with the long walk we were ready to board a lift by 9:45. We wanted to take the packs to midstation as is our habit and since the gondi line was fairly long and no one was in line at all on the Valley Triple, we took the latter. Bad choice, as soon as we broke over the initial rise we saw a chunk of about 200ft of blue plastic mesh crowd control fencing break away from the bottom of tower ten hill where the finish line was for the snowboard GS races going on. It swirled and twirled like a giant Anaconda and wound itself around the mid station shuttle double that shares the same towers. Of course, they shut the lift down to prevent entanglement in it and derailment. After about a 10 minute sit in a minus 50 wind-chill we eventually got going again and made it up. Lower valley was excellent with large piles of powder built up from the guns and I really got into the bumps right off the bat on the first run. I had been watching the website conditions report all week and saw several trails checked indicating snowmaking in progress but not open. I knew they were shooting for this past weekend and gambled on finding lots of fresh snow and brought my Elans this time. Although I had done no tuning or any prep work on them at all from last season I was still able to get good response in the new snow the guns had been pumping out all week. We definitely took the gondi for the next run and as we approached the top we could see sliders over on Lower Cloudspin. Starting down the initial top traverse of Excelsior I could tell the old Elans were in dire need of sharpening. Sticking to the edges I made it down around the big first corner where more loose snow was available and very edgeable even considering the overwhelming traffic usage. While I frolicked in the edge fluff going against the grain of the traffic, Shana got right out in the main stream and headed bee line for the connector to lower cloudspin. I keep forgetting that snowboarders don't like those long flat stretches. No problem, the connector was like a bowling alley. Quite the contrary on Lower Cloudspin. Just like last week with Mt. Run, they just opened it up and let every one go at it. It's really amazing how the entire contour of a trail can change when left to skiers attacking the random erratic effect of snow making. Also, working from right to left or pipe line side to opposite, one could find actually three different types of conditions or contours off one trail. Eventually they will have to groom it and it becomes a characterless flat 300 ft or so wide bowling alley type trail. Anyway, it was plain old early season awesome, a welcome change from the past several seasons. We then found Boreen to be open from midstation down and had the most fun ever scorching a green circle trail. There aint no way mini parabolic shaped skis can keep up with a snowboarder flat out. They just aren't made for speed and Shana let me know there was no way I could catch her if she really didn't let me. She even catches little jumps off the banks on the sides of the trail occasionally. Dang kids!!! After two or three duplicate runs Shana had to go in for some clothing modifications and to warm up for a while and since I could still feel my toes I decided to try newly opened Approach to Mt. Run/Parkway. I found Approach to be in perfect condition and could just rock and roll anywhere across the trail. Picking my way around the top of Mt. Run which gets iced over real easy, I went far to the right of Upper Parkway and did the headwall down to where control fences forced skiers back onto Mt. Run because of the Paul Mitchell GS board race in progress. Lower Mt. Run was very good except for the middle third or so that was starting to get scratched icy. Any time you can find more than just five or six feet of trail edge skiable on Mt. Run consider it excellent. After thawing my face out enough to eat lunch we did about three more laps on Excelsior/Lower Cloudspin/Broadway/Boreen and found we could ski it all day and not hit the same line twice. It never got boring. We quit a little early and I took my skis straight to the shop for a good overnight tune. I also had to get ready for a company Christmas party and the big ski day on Sunday with Shirley to try new skis all day. Chalk up a great day, even with the numbing cold, toward excellent SFII training. I gotta get used to the ski-party-ski routine. Jimski

Whiteface Mt. 12/9

Jimski

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