Mad River Glen, VT 12/26/99

[Benjie]

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/27/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Hit Mad River yesterday for the opening day of the main mountain (the practice slope had been running for a few days already). The snow report said "variable conditions," and that was pretty accurate, but I was surprised at how much snow there was up there. It was all covered with a breakable crust that was easy to ski through up top and became more and more treacherous lower down on the mountain. In general things improved as the crust got skier-groomed, but by the end of the day there were some brown spots poking out. <BR> <BR>What was open? Pretty much all of the blue and green terrain except for Snail/Periwinkle/S-turn. The only blacks open in the morning were Catamount, Chute, and the top of Canyon. Chute was great, although it was more challenging than usual since there was less snow to fill in the drop-offs. In the middle of the afternoon they dropped the rope on Slalom Hill, which was crusty but fun. <BR> <BR>Anyway, it was nice to be back on real snow, and really nice to be able to ski down without snowguns blasting everywhere. At least winter has finally arrived in time for the holidays!