Mark Renson
New member
With the forecast of crusty conditions, I headed up in anticipation of having much patrol work to do including marathon boot-packing. High winds hammered my pickup on I-89 and I kept my speed under 60. <BR> On Saturday morning, the PD announced "in the words of Boomer, we got f***ed". A crust had indeed formed over the 6-8" of new snow. It was discovered that this crust was so firm that it could not be bootpacked. It couldn't be skied, <BR>either. "Stay on the groomed or you will be doomed" was the message of the day (on the summit signboard, too). Still much work had to be done by the patrol just to have the Upper Antelope-Broadway and Fox-Vixen runs funneling into <BR>Bunny opened. <BR> By the end of the day, we had Birdland, Porcupine and Chipmunk opened in addition to Quacky. The Quacky headwall was the only ungroomed that was opened and it really was not that bad. As usual, Quacky had the best snow of the day. <BR> On Sunday, about a half inch of snow covered the groomed. Cat Bowl and Canyon <BR>were uncharacteristically groomed. Again, much patrol work had to be performed. Cat Bowl was fine on the first run, but death cookies sprouted at the end of the day. <BR> By the end of the day, I became a bit tired of the groomed hardpack. But on the bright side, there is a terrific base in Northern Vermont - a foot of snow will work wonders! <BR> On the way home, I clicked on the AM button of my radio and caught the Patriots just as I was climbing the big hill by Whaleback on I-89. Static persisted, but I caught the excitement and did catch Tebucky Jones' (from New <BR>BrITainnnn - New Britain accent, ya' know) fumble return that was called back. This morning, the Sam Adams monument in fornt of Fanieul Hall had a Patriots T-Shirt on him.