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The 2017-18 Ski Season Thread


Skivt2

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This is this year and last year... very oddly similar despite different values, the ups and downs almost mirror each other.  And then the big March snowfalls happened on the same days too.  Last year though continued to snow hard with back to back 10"+ storms on the first two weekends of April.  

Last year was a banner winter, and without that thaw back down to average, it would have set the all-time depth record.

IMG_9011.PNG.8e85b0a7eba297e030d7a4912ee69f79.PNG

 

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Great Brook in Carlisle MA closed today with about 30% of trails still open - but fading fast. My goal now is a couple of lift served days and a trip up to Mt. Washington while the Sherburne trail down is still skiable. I hope winter hangs on in the mountains. I could use a few warm, sunny big corny bump skiing days up north!

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Great day of skiing at Sunday river on Saturday. Excellent conditions. Esp considering they hadn't had new snow in about ten days going in. Only encountered a few icy spots where it was skied out and wind scoured. Very deep bases for the most part. Got a little corn mealy at the very base by afternoon but 80-90% of the mountain was chalky PP. 

Ginxy, they are def ruining ridge run with all those houses. Too many of them now and they added that ugly road in and tunnel for the trail. Kind of bummed when I saw that. Still a nice trail but not as good. 

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2 hours ago, ORH_wxman said:

Great day of skiing at Sunday river on Saturday. Excellent conditions. Esp considering they hadn't had new snow in about ten days going in. Only encountered a few icy spots where it was skied out and wind scoured. Very deep bases for the most part. Got a little corn mealy at the very base by afternoon but 80-90% of the mountain was chalky PP. 

Ginxy, they are def ruining ridge run with all those houses. Too many of them now and they added that ugly road in and tunnel for the trail. Kind of bummed when I saw that. Still a nice trail but not as good. 

yea we said the same, did you try the new Bear Paw run off of Wildfire, man that is an excellent old school New England run

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33 minutes ago, Redmorninglight said:

I have a 5 day window starting Good Friday to do a trip. Was hoping to go with my daughter to Sugarloaf or SR but it looks like an ugly cutter is in the works.  She's never been to Maine and I was hoping for decent conditions.  Any suggestions?

watch the Euro

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35 minutes ago, Redmorninglight said:

I have a 5 day window starting Good Friday to do a trip. Was hoping to go with my daughter to Sugarloaf or SR but it looks like an ugly cutter is in the works.  She's never been to Maine and I was hoping for decent conditions.  Any suggestions?

You won't avoid some uglier conditions if the cutter happens...hopefully it's flatter like last night's euro showed. Sugarloaf will typically have the best conditions late in the season in New England due to its latitude. There's a decent chance that a follow-up wave on Monday/Tuesday could drop some snow, so perhaps Tuesday would be a good day even if the cutter happens...get some fresh snow back on top.

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2 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Fell in love with it, Monday morning no one had been on it at all and we laid first tracks. glad you had fun. How did Meghan do?

Megan did great...aside from the nasty surprise she got on ridge run on our first run of the day....she was not expecting that steep drop to the tunnel given it wasn't there last time we went. Freaked her out. It's a little steep for her. But she got down it later in the day just fine after doing some other runs to get her sea legs back under her.

 

Only thing that sucked for me was while Megan was at a lesson, I went over to Jordan bowl and by the time I got there, they had just closed the lift due to mechanical issue....ugh. So then I had to cross country uphill back to Aurora chair lift...cost me 25 min of my precious time. I did get good runs in on vortex, air glow, and then over on White Cap I did white heat which was in stellar condition. Didn't hit any icy patches on it which is amazing considering no new snow in 10 days before I got there. To keep good snow on a pitch like that is impressive...but they do a good job grooming there, so not a huge surprise I guess.

 

Is snow making on Quantum Leap a new thing? I noticed that on the back side of north peak...it was smothered in snow...no way that was all natural since it has an unfavorable west exposure.

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59 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Megan did great...aside from the nasty surprise she got on ridge run on our first run of the day....she was not expecting that steep drop to the tunnel given it wasn't there last time we went. Freaked her out. It's a little steep for her. But she got down it later in the day just fine after doing some other runs to get her sea legs back under her.

 

Only thing that sucked for me was while Megan was at a lesson, I went over to Jordan bowl and by the time I got there, they had just closed the lift due to mechanical issue....ugh. So then I had to cross country uphill back to Aurora chair lift...cost me 25 min of my precious time. I did get good runs in on vortex, air glow, and then over on White Cap I did white heat which was in stellar condition. Didn't hit any icy patches on it which is amazing considering no new snow in 10 days before I got there. To keep good snow on a pitch like that is impressive...but they do a good job grooming there, so not a huge surprise I guess.

 

Is snow making on Quantum Leap a new thing? I noticed that on the back side of north peak...it was smothered in snow...no way that was all natural since it has an unfavorable west exposure.

QL was spectacular and yes they must have made snow it was all groomed out and steep. Yea that tunnel sucks and they put in extreme right turn into ridge express, don't like it at all. UGh on the Jordan bowl stuff, Monday we did Lolla then on our way back up the wind got crazy, gusted near 60 so we bailed, found out after, we got off just in time as they closed the lift. what was great though was we hit Rogue Angel first thing Tuesday newly groomed and barely touched. How did you cross country to Aurora?

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39 minutes ago, Sugarloaf1989 said:

Im thinking about skiing at Berkshire East tomorrow with their $15 deal on lift tickets. I've already been there 4 times, but tomorrow looks stellar snow conditions and weather wise.

Skied Mt Snow today and the weather was absolutely grand... and yet tomorrow looks even better.  Today didn't start to soften til noon and only in full sun.  Tomorrow should be legit Spring skiing... soak in those rays... one of the highlights of the year.

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57 minutes ago, radarman said:

Skied Mt Snow today and the weather was absolutely grand... and yet tomorrow looks even better.  Today didn't start to soften til noon and only in full sun.  Tomorrow should be legit Spring skiing... soak in those rays... one of the highlights of the year.

Yeah tomorrow should be the best spring day of the season so far.  Didn't soften much today except south facing slopes and under 2,000ft.  Tomorrow should be another 5-10F warmer which should hit the tipping point for softening everywhere.

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1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah tomorrow should be the best spring day of the season so far.  Didn't soften much today except south facing slopes and under 2,000ft.  Tomorrow should be another 5-10F warmer which should hit the tipping point for softening everywhere.

Low teens will lock things up hard though, have to find trails in full sun in the afternoon for soft 

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40 minutes ago, Ginx snewx said:

Low teens will lock things up hard though, have to find trails in full sun in the afternoon for soft 

Yeah it'll lock up but that's what you want.  The best spring snow conditions include a hard freeze overnight to solidify everything, followed by mild, sunny afternoons.  That produces that awesome corn snow that peels off an inch or two thick at a time.  The base remains cold from the overnight freeze (so things don't get sloppy and soupy)...but the surface snow is turns into that sparkling corn snow (granular snow that's wet on the outside of the kernels and slides so nicely).

It's crazy how much aspect and elevation matter in snow conditions this time of year, just like your front yard may get torched while the backyard has 18" of snowpack.  Today I noticed on a few runs that the shaded side of the trail by spruces was chalky dry packed powder type snow while the other side of the trail was soft spring corn.

The low humidity we've had the past 7-10 days with lots of sunny days has really led to Colorado type conditions.

Here's what I've got for the Stowe snow report:

"We expect to see packed powder conditions remain in the shaded higher elevations and on north facing aspects into early afternoon tomorrow, but rising temperatures may even turn those locations into spring conditions by mid/late afternoon. Lower elevations and sun soaked aspects (such as terrain off the Gondola or at Spruce Peak) will see another day of classic spring conditions. What that means is we’ll see firm conditions to start the day in those areas, transitioning to soft & smooth spring corn snow as the sun and temperatures rise. The corn snow harvest should be in full swing by mid to late morning tomorrow on those eastern and southern facing slopes."

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1 hour ago, powderfreak said:

Yeah it'll lock up but that's what you want.  The best spring snow conditions include a hard freeze overnight to solidify everything, followed by mild, sunny afternoons.  That produces that awesome corn snow that peels off an inch or two thick at a time.  The base remains cold from the overnight freeze (so things don't get sloppy and soupy)...but the surface snow is turns into that sparkling corn snow (granular snow that's wet on the outside of the kernels and slides so nicely).

It's crazy how much aspect and elevation matter in snow conditions this time of year, just like your front yard may get torched while the backyard has 18" of snowpack.  Today I noticed on a few runs that the shaded side of the trail by spruces was chalky dry packed powder type snow while the other side of the trail was soft spring corn.

The low humidity we've had the past 7-10 days with lots of sunny days has really led to Colorado type conditions.

Here's what I've got for the Stowe snow report:

"We expect to see packed powder conditions remain in the shaded higher elevations and on north facing aspects into early afternoon tomorrow, but rising temperatures may even turn those locations into spring conditions by mid/late afternoon. Lower elevations and sun soaked aspects (such as terrain off the Gondola or at Spruce Peak) will see another day of classic spring conditions. What that means is we’ll see firm conditions to start the day in those areas, transitioning to soft & smooth spring corn snow as the sun and temperatures rise. The corn snow harvest should be in full swing by mid to late morning tomorrow on those eastern and southern facing slopes."

Yea that's what I meant, some think warm sun means mashed taters, not with cold overnights and low dews

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