Ascutney, VT 1/30/00

[Stuart]

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/31/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Couldn't decide what would be optimum skiing experience as I drove up. Mt Snow/Haystack? High base, some natural snow before this past 15" storm (but still no safe woods skiing - I had new good skis only), probably sort of crowded at least in lodge, Mt. Snow too expensive, Haystack too tame for me. Are the Witches all open? <BR> <BR>Magic - price is right but little expert terrain open with lack of natural snow. <BR> <BR>So I went on to Ascutney. Temperature was optimum, sunny beautiful weather. There are some real improvements in the snowmaking there. I was bummed at first, as upper Exhibition was not open even though covered with glacial amounts of new manmade over bumps. There were even crevasses opening up, deep blue green. But they thought it too weird for the general public as the surface was deep and crusty. However they had made snow on Touch-n-Go and Gotcha, and just had fun with the guns making whales and bumps where ever and it was a blast. Also, for the first time, I skied Terminator, which would be an awesome bump run. Skiing where there wasn't snowmaking was no good as there was nothing under the 12". But in some places there was the new snow on top of the manmade still loose, like side of Terminator, skier's right of the Face's groomed strip (watch out for some bowling ball size death cookies) which is making into a pretty good bump field. A real nice day of skiing. The new liftline looks fine to me, I don't know how else you'd cut it up that mountain, which is ledgy and rough. Its wide but there's a quad going in so whatya expect? Its gonna bring the vert up to 1800 and it's a real nice drop from the top. If they really get some dumps go and get some tracks, if they'll let you. <BR>Lift waits were up to 10 minutes, so the new chair will really help. Most crowded I've ever seen Ascutney, but the lodge and skiing was very manageable crowd wise. We parked down by the ski shop for a friend to get rentals and you could literally step in /out of your skis next to the car.