Keywords: Freshies, knee-deep, poaching, trees <BR> <BR>Report for Sunday: <BR> <BR>Yesterday was pretty good, but the Big Squaw patrol forced us to be criminals by not dropping any ropes on trails that hadn't had snowmaking and grooming. Something about "12 inches of new snow over no base" and "big rocks." Uh-huh. I touched bottom twice all day. Skiing powder is not a crime. <BR> <BR>The poaching was rampant. I got caught by a patrollie who ducked out of a glade right in front of me. Bussss-ted. When asked how I got where I was, the "I came up mumble mumble" defense didn't work so well. Guess you have to be a local for that to work. At least he didn't mark or pull our tickets. <BR> <BR>The best part of the day -- it was half price. Well, that was also the worst part of the day. Seems that a groomer driver started celebrating New Years a little early, and accidently bumped a utility pole with the cat which knocked out power to half the resort, including the chair that serves all the interesting skiing. Vouchers were obtained, we retired to the bar, and then the power company performed a major miracle by getting the electricity restored within about an hour. Seeing as they had neglected to clip our tickets when they gave us the vouchers, back onto the hill we went. 2 days skiing, holiday weekend, $28 <IMG SRC="http://www.firsttracksonline.com/discus2/clipart/happy.gif" ALT="
"> <BR> <BR>Monday: <BR> <BR>Big Squaw again. Windblown powder on the trails. All the blacks were groomed but roped. Lots of gravel was visible from the chair on those closed trails. The patrol also closed the glade entrance. The patrol uses FRS radios, so I was able to monitor the radio traffic so as to plan my lift rides to be at the top when they opened the glade. Nobody was poaching today. After all, why poach groomed gravel? <BR> <BR>In the meantime, powder hunting mode: Horrible ice (as usual) at the top choke-point on Penobscot. The wind whips across that point and it is always scoured clean. Creamy wind deposition along the trail margins, shortcuts across trail switchbacks through the woods yielded up more fluffy turns. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually the trail margins degenrated to moguls. <BR> <BR>Finally about 11:30 the patrol opened the glade. I managed third tracks in there, probably the first non-patrol tracks. There are enough lines available that I was able to get about half a dozen runs through the trees before it was getting tracked-up too badly. The glade exits out onto the lower parts of the black trails that were roped from the top. Additional lightly tracked snow could be found on Coco Run, which formed up to some nice rhythmic bumps by late in the day (Parallel mogul technique can be done with free heels, cool!), or on the margins of the trail (can't remember name) that lead to the base of the double chair at the extreme skiers left <BR>of the area. <BR> <BR>I finished up the day with some low angle but almost untracked turns off the intermediate's triple on the lower mountain. Free heels definitely helped getting to them, and kept everyone else away. The stream crossing at the bottom probably didn't encourage anyone to take second runs over there either... <BR> <BR>I spoke with the guy who cut the glade this summer. Apparently they are planning to bring an entire new mountain face onto the map over the next couple years by cutting a new traverse across the top of the ridgeline that extends along the north-west side of the area, and glading everything between that trail and the boundary trail which currently runs along the bottom of that valley. This would seriously increase their amount of steep terrain, a department in which Big Squaw is seriously lacking with their current trail system. I really hope it happens, it would make getting a pass there much more tempting.
"> <BR> <BR>Monday: <BR> <BR>Big Squaw again. Windblown powder on the trails. All the blacks were groomed but roped. Lots of gravel was visible from the chair on those closed trails. The patrol also closed the glade entrance. The patrol uses FRS radios, so I was able to monitor the radio traffic so as to plan my lift rides to be at the top when they opened the glade. Nobody was poaching today. After all, why poach groomed gravel? <BR> <BR>In the meantime, powder hunting mode: Horrible ice (as usual) at the top choke-point on Penobscot. The wind whips across that point and it is always scoured clean. Creamy wind deposition along the trail margins, shortcuts across trail switchbacks through the woods yielded up more fluffy turns. Lather, rinse, repeat. Eventually the trail margins degenrated to moguls. <BR> <BR>Finally about 11:30 the patrol opened the glade. I managed third tracks in there, probably the first non-patrol tracks. There are enough lines available that I was able to get about half a dozen runs through the trees before it was getting tracked-up too badly. The glade exits out onto the lower parts of the black trails that were roped from the top. Additional lightly tracked snow could be found on Coco Run, which formed up to some nice rhythmic bumps by late in the day (Parallel mogul technique can be done with free heels, cool!), or on the margins of the trail (can't remember name) that lead to the base of the double chair at the extreme skiers left <BR>of the area. <BR> <BR>I finished up the day with some low angle but almost untracked turns off the intermediate's triple on the lower mountain. Free heels definitely helped getting to them, and kept everyone else away. The stream crossing at the bottom probably didn't encourage anyone to take second runs over there either... <BR> <BR>I spoke with the guy who cut the glade this summer. Apparently they are planning to bring an entire new mountain face onto the map over the next couple years by cutting a new traverse across the top of the ridgeline that extends along the north-west side of the area, and glading everything between that trail and the boundary trail which currently runs along the bottom of that valley. This would seriously increase their amount of steep terrain, a department in which Big Squaw is seriously lacking with their current trail system. I really hope it happens, it would make getting a pass there much more tempting.