Mark Renson
New member
After getting home late from work on Friday night, I opted for an early morning trip up North on Saturday. The prior weekend's hardpack was coated with heavy fresh snow from the midweek. <BR> First run down Cat Bowl saw crunchy bumps that turned into smooth sweet bumps on the lower part. Great skiing was to be had everywhere. Around mid-day, I wanted to cruise down Fox/Vixen, but had a change of heart and headed into the Ski School Woods where I found untracked and a new line that I never knew had existed before. I was shocked later on to find with lurker Charlie Bates, surprisingly large amounts of snow in the woods off of The Double, finding lines I had never seen before. Very forgiving, too, as there was much room to navigate. <BR>I was assigned to sweep the Cantelope Chute which had a difficult entrance due to the deep snow which made me duck under the tree branches. Yup, snow is that deep in The Holy Land. Sweet bumps on Lynx, a little crust on the uppr part of Beaver, but things were great lower down. <BR> Winds overnight made for some interesting windpacked powder. Check was down my morning favorite - Panther, where I found intriguing satrugi and windswept right before it blends with Slalom Hill. <BR> While on Upper Glade doing sled training, we envied others skiing the great snow while we toiled, so that was the obvious next choice after we were done playing with the sled. Great packed powder, especially on the steep upper headwall was found. For dessert, I nailed some punchy windblown on a tree shot I helped cut on a cold drizzly day in November 1999. <BR> Around midday, I did some personal "clinicing" on the tricky punchy windpacked untracked that was found in Birdland. It was enjoyable and educational. Upper Robin/Wren and Robin had the best windpacked tricky snow as did some of the tree shots. <BR> During the day, I ran into PJ and Marta who made me insanely green with envy as they reported a backcountry trip to a place I will keep quiet about - they found blustery winds, but shockingly deeeeep snow. <BR> Final sweep run was down Fall Line and into the sweet Upper Glade into Lower Glade. The latter was granted to me as others were too tired to negotiate the bumps. <BR> This morning, I drew Chute-Liftline for check. Chute was a bit icy, but Liftline was wonderful with that sweet skier packed powder which the steeeep lower headwall elegant. <BR> I did some more fun "clinicing" in Birdland, then hooked up with a friend to crank it up a few notches. Fall Line was sweet as we found a new shot that was made available due to the deep snows; Upper Glade was great and some nice styrofoam was found in a shot that I helped cut. Off of the Double, we had a ball on Panther. The next runs down Liftline and Panther were very nice. For sweep, we sat in the shack at the top of The Double and I started to become stiff. The injury was discussed and it really sank into me. I swept Gazelle, but was a bit tentative on the crunchy bumps which were similiar to those on Chute.