Loon Mt., NH 1/15-16/00

John · Apr 18, 2000

(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/18/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.) The traveling circus we call our family headed for the hills on MLK weekend. Accomodations were at the none too swanky Alpine Village condos in Woodstock NH, where nary a flake of fresh littered the ground. Loon 1/15. Awoke to frigid temps on Sat. The womenfolk and kids opted out of skiing and decided to spend the day lolling in the hot tub and pool -- probably not such a bad decision. -12 at base -6 at top. No wind to speak of. Rode the new Kancamagus quad, which originates at the Gov. Adams lodge and terminates a little above halfway up the hill, serving the intermediate terrain on the right side of the hill. Large crowd, but the quad limited the waits to the 5-10 minute range. It being Loon and all, every scrap of manmade on the hill was groomed. High speed, parallel tele cruisers were the order of the morning. Moved on up to the double and triple that serve the East peak area. I dislike the look and feel of Walking Boss and Flume, the two expert/interm. trails to skiers right from the top. Too wide, no character, too many people. In addition, they were blowing mondo snow on Flume. Way too sticky for my unwaxed boards. Made for a herky/jerk torture run. Angel Street, another "expert" run from the East peak, was a little improvement. It too was groomed, but it was a little steeper and had none of that sticky stuff. Views from the top were fantabulous. A panorama of snow-topped peaks set against a cloudless sky of deep blue. Loon 1/16. Snowing heavily at sunrise and snow continued heavy all morning. (Total for day about 10" at top.) We opted for a half-day/afternoon thing, scoring decent parking in the lot near the quad as the morning people split for home. Got to ski the pow for about two hours, which ended up being a good number of runs as I rode the chairlifts solo. New snow really changes the complexion of Loon. Everything had little bumps and the whole mountain was a blast. Hit some nice knee-deep in a gully on the right side of Angel St. It was mostly snow that had been pushed off the center of the trail, but it was still suprisingly light and it was the highlight of the weekend. Discovered some really swell intermediate terrain (Flying Fox / Picked Rock?) off the quad. Nice Tree-lined cruisers with plenty of dips, rolls, and turns and really not that wide. Saw tracks going into the trees where they have cut some new tree skiing areas. Way too bony for me, but the bad boyz/girlz are keeping the faith. Stopped at 1:30 and put my little guy (4 1/2) in some lessons; saw the value of the much maligned Magic Carpet (aka Satan's treadmill). Say what you will but for the rank beginner, this device puts the focus on learning to ski and takes it off learning to ride the surface lift. In this situation, it seems to have way more positives than negatives going for it. After the lesson, we moved to the platterpull. Warren Miller could shoot reels of footage here. What a show. People being dragged, people being flipped, people being hit in the butt with the platter and then biffed on the face with it. On and on and on. Tried to get #1 son to work on wedge. He refuses. He's decided to go right to his own brand of semi-wedge-christie-parallel turns as means of slowing down. So...what the heck. Up and down we go. He turns right, he turns left. Where did he learn this -- not me. The better half must be stepping out on me with an Austrian ski instructor. Way good time. Nothing like watching the little one get the fever. We didn't stop to eat or go warm up because IT WAS TOO MUCH FUN SKIING. Conclusions: Loon does several things great -- grooming (if you like that stuff), intermediate terrain, snowmaking, customer service (I never saw more resort people help struggling skiers with their equipment than I did this weekend). Doesn't seem like much of a place for the rad squad, although the tree action has not been fully investigated.

Loon Mt., NH 1/15-16/00

John

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