Angus

Had fun at WaWa this afternoon. Fair # of people hiking with skis, skinning or just families hiking on the slopes. Going up to the summit between noon and 1, there wasn't much softening. The east facing slope - Minuteman chair - had much nicer and softer snow. There was even a bump line to be skied. May go up early Tuesday for turns if weather forecast is correct. There is quite a bit of snow on trails as reported.

i will probably do this a bit just to get outdoors close to home.

I'll be interested to hear any reports from ski areas about how the skiers followed the guidance provided by the resorts...example an excerpt from Vail properties that I've received multiple times now..."We will ask guests to ride on chairlifts and gondolas with their parties only. We ask for our guests’ patience while we implement this new protocol. We will post signage with social distancing reminders and our employees will be on site to help encourage safe protocols."

I assume my ski season is done. I honestly don't understand how packed onto a ski lift even in the open, moving air is not going to cause transmission. The profit at this point is minimal to the areas - PF could confirm. I just worry about the seasonal labor being terminated 3-4 weeks early. I just finished reading an article in the NYTimes about some of the modeling the CDC has been doing and it is scary stuff.

What was striking yesterday, driving south on 89 from the border was the little snow even in the hills around the Bolton/Waterbury exits. My attention will now turn to ice out on our lake in NH!

drove up to Tremblant on Friday and nordic skied Friday and this morning (Sunday) before heading home. Downhill skied on Saturday. A couple of observations, the mountain skis much bigger than the vertical. Couldn't quite figure out why other than it has a bunch of subpeaks and a 'north' and 'south' side. It is a fun mountain. A good amount of tree skiing for all abilities, all of which is very well cleaned out - mostly hardwoods anyway - and the coverage was deep enough that we never encountered any stumps or rocks and tree limbs sticking out of the snow. Lot's of uphill lift capacity but also big crowds. Skied with daughter and son and we mostly just hopped in single's line to maximize our vertical. They have a lot of snowmaking capacity and they appear not to be shy about using it. They have a good base but hadn't had any recent snow and maybe a little bit of rain but as I said to my son, 'it's still eastern skiing.' on the main routes down the hill, there was a fair amount of boilerplate and the steep trails had man-made boilerplate interspersed with powdery bumps - definitely should have sharpened my edges before heading up. The nordic trail network was tremendous. Having skied essentially a 600m loop on a golf course all winter, getting out into the woods for kilometers of well groomed trails was awesome. We stayed at what I guess would be described as a boutique hotel adjacent to the 'ski village' and was able to access the nordic network from my hotel with less than a 1/4 mile walk The Laurentian region is beautiful. The other thing that was very cool was all the smallish sized ski areas north of montreal - all looking very busy.

I just checked the sugarloaf twitter account and they said King Pine was off-line due to maintenance. Again, I would never advocate compromising safety but that is aggravating! That's the new lift that replaced the lift that had the catastrophic failure a few years back. I skied Cannon today and the regulars said mountain ops had to put the place back together last night after the weather left trees and branches down all over the mountain. There was considerable boilerplate under the 3" that fell during the day. I skied Kinsman Glade which should not have been open IMO given the natural snow depth...dodging stumps and other obstacles the whole way down. Again, the regulars said they had lost a lot of snow over the week. I'm kind of ho-hum about the snowfields but I think the Brackett Basin thing is great - I was very much a doubter too until I skied there last April

Our neighbors on Winnisquam sent me pictures of themselves out on the ice in our cove this afternoon. What a spectacular day. They had been skiing for a couple of days at BW and those pictures looked great too. Winter in the NH lakes region is under appreciated.

Oregon is a beautiful state. Between the mountains and beaches - which are incredible - it is outdoor persons paradise.

They were hosting an alpine touring race this weekend. Following on Instagram but I believe the guy who won ended up skiing & skinning for 33+ hours. Good mountain.

Skied Crotched yesterday PM into the evening with my 9-yo nephew from DC. Talking to folks on the lifts, lots of NYers doing the Crotched, Sunapee, Mt. Snow loop over the 3-day weekend with their "Vail" pass. Thank goodness for snowmaking. Crotched doesn't have the most character but the snow product is consistent and it's a real nice asset in the local community. Noticed the nordic races went off in Dublin NH - just southwest of Crotched - yesterday with enough natural coverage. Only 3 days of alpine this season but all have over-delivered based upon expectations.

Skied at Bretton Woods today. Good size crowds and they stayed all day. Chose BW instead of Cannon and was the right choice. Very good coverage on man-made trails. Even skied some lower angle wood and natural snow trails and they were manageable. The gondola is nice - took two trips up at end of day after lines had abated. BW isn't my thing terrain wise but they do a really nice job for their customer. Fun day.

Quarry Roads , Waterville Maine Friday Brunswick Maine around just opened trails cut on the old Naval base Saturday Weston Ski track today... Just reinforced what a tough winter it has been for everyone.

I need to get out to BEast this season.

Much better than expected at Cannon today. They have done a good job recovering from last weekend. The front 5 part of mountain was being pounded by snow making to point it was nearly impossible to ski due to visibility. First day on downhill skis - felt good.

headed to Cannon tomorrow. Son sent me a Reddit thread about today's lines - yikes, some of the pictures posted were horrible.

planning on alpine skiing for first time this season on Sunday or Monday - really hoping these two events deliver in the notch. The thought of skiing a bunch of ice is unappealing for my first day out of season. This has to be the latest start to my season in 15 seasons.

would like to get out to Hunter this season - I've never skied in NY state.

the sign that the road is closed in the winter is pretty obvious if my memory serves me right. This ski trip will be legend in that family forever. Lucky they are all fine.

If you know how to move around Killington, avoiding the crowd and skiing the right trails, it is a great mountain. I feel lost when skiing alone but when I follow my son who knows his way around, I enjoy it very much. We usually start at Bear Mountain, go all the way across the resort and back again. With that said, I rarely ski mid-winter - tend to ski bumps around May 1 most years. 5 more days this week on the skinny skis at the Weston ski track...kind of concerned they may lose their loop with the incoming precipitation.

[Was pointing the mountain out to my daughter from Welch Dickey on Sunday. Just looked up their current pricing for season pass - $389. I think ragged was selling their passes for low $300's pre-season. Like all skiers, would love to see them succeed but no snow making is problematic.

Daughter, dog and I hiked Welch Dickey (Waterville Valley NH - today - beautiful day to be in mountains. probably only 4" on the ground.

Someone posted pictures of Sugarbush on a ski forum I read, from Thursday I think, Sugarbush has a pretty liberal policy relative to trail openings...some of the trails looked very, very thin.

https://waw.w3.uvm.edu//skivt-l/?Page=depths.php

So quick update, 5 days of nordic skiing this week. Two days at Weston and three around the neighborhood. Great Brook received their contract from the DCR one day after they were eligible to be open but the latest update stated the DCR had still not counter signed so they can't begin preparations to open. They would have gotten huge crowds this weekend. I can't tell you how disappointing the behavior of the DCR is for the local nordic skiing community and everyone feels very bad for the guy who runs the place and his employees. On weekends when they are open, you can't find a parking spot- it always amazes me what a huge pent-up demand there is to ski. Also, the local high schools use it as a practice facility rather than fighting traffic to weston. just a joke.