I have a hard time imagining skiing can get much better than it was yesterday at MRG, unless you're out West or in the Alps above tree line after a big dump.
I'd been watching the weather and thought about making the haul up to Jay but once I was confident MRG would have plenty of snow, that's where I decided to go. (Fortunately right now I have flexibility to take days off from work on short notice.) Found a room at a nearby B&B that included a lift ticket and breakfast for just $25 more than I'd have paid for the lift ticket, so I drove up Sunday night -- to get a good night's sleep and be sure to be at the mountain no matter how much snow they got. (Some mildly challenging driving conditions but not too bad.)
At 8:45 a.m., well rested and with a hearty breakfast in my belly, I became fifth in line for the single. Plenty of time to stretch and adjust my boot buckles to perfection. As I mentioned in a separate thread, I'd skied twice in the previous four days at a feeder hill local to me and I'd also done cross-country on my property pretty much every day for the past week, so as I rode up it occurred to me that I have never been as tuned up for a first run as I was now.
And what a day to be so well prepared. In short MRG had reported around 2' of snow since Friday, including 6" during the day Sunday and another 5-7" by Monday morning. Light to moderate snow continued all morning with occasional spurts early afternoon -- MRG counted another 4" during the day.
I'm not a super-advanced skier but can handle a fair amount of terrain so my first-tracks run was Upper Antelope to Grand Canyon. Next run was down a still largely untracked Catamount. Subsequently I got my ass kicked on Fall Line and I hit Upper Glades for my first time (for a variety of reasons I'd never skied MRG before this year). At one rest break on Upper Glades I commented to another skier that this actually was a bit beyond my ability -- and that that was exactly where I wanted to be in such perfect conditions.
I'm not able to really ski the woods (yet) but lots of people seemed to be having a blast doing so. I'd say Lower Antelope was my favorite run of the day -- apparently it had been groomed before the most recent snow days so the bumps, while plentiful, weren't excessively large. Relatively little skier traffic there, plenty of patches of untracked at late morning. At the bottom I figured I'd ski to the road rather than traverse the woods as I'd wanted to take a trip to the cooler in my car, and there was just one set of tracks down that last stretch. This went great until near the end when I hit the edge of what apparently is some sort of small wooden jump somone has built, at which time my skis stopped and I was launched into my own little version of Shock and Awe. But in 2' of powder, not so bad ... I wound up bagging the trip to the car and walking right back to the single anyway, snowy and with a story to tell ...
Anyway, no lift line to speak of on the single except maybe a few minutes long shortly before noon, at which time I did my one trip of the day up Sunnyside and had a blast on Quacky.
Reports were that it was going to get very windy in the afternoon so I skied nonstop from 9 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., then took just a 15-minute break for an energy bar and coffee. The wind wound up not being too bad, though it did pick up late in the day, with the occasional whiteout. My legs were getting pretty spent but I wanted to wring every last possible minute out of this glorious day and I did so by mostly opting for easier runs the last couple hours, skiing the edges slowly. Still kept finding some untracked stashes and by late in the day the upslope sides of the upper trails were getting filled in by wind. An absolute joy. And my last run included Lower Canyon so it wasn't like I totally wimped out at the end.
I was done at 4:15 p.m. -- a total of seven hours of ski time in conditions that defy words. My third powder day of the year (MRG 2/12 and Cannon 2/15 being the others) and the best ski day I've ever had in the East.
edits: add snowfall during day, other stuff
I'd been watching the weather and thought about making the haul up to Jay but once I was confident MRG would have plenty of snow, that's where I decided to go. (Fortunately right now I have flexibility to take days off from work on short notice.) Found a room at a nearby B&B that included a lift ticket and breakfast for just $25 more than I'd have paid for the lift ticket, so I drove up Sunday night -- to get a good night's sleep and be sure to be at the mountain no matter how much snow they got. (Some mildly challenging driving conditions but not too bad.)
At 8:45 a.m., well rested and with a hearty breakfast in my belly, I became fifth in line for the single. Plenty of time to stretch and adjust my boot buckles to perfection. As I mentioned in a separate thread, I'd skied twice in the previous four days at a feeder hill local to me and I'd also done cross-country on my property pretty much every day for the past week, so as I rode up it occurred to me that I have never been as tuned up for a first run as I was now.
And what a day to be so well prepared. In short MRG had reported around 2' of snow since Friday, including 6" during the day Sunday and another 5-7" by Monday morning. Light to moderate snow continued all morning with occasional spurts early afternoon -- MRG counted another 4" during the day.
I'm not a super-advanced skier but can handle a fair amount of terrain so my first-tracks run was Upper Antelope to Grand Canyon. Next run was down a still largely untracked Catamount. Subsequently I got my ass kicked on Fall Line and I hit Upper Glades for my first time (for a variety of reasons I'd never skied MRG before this year). At one rest break on Upper Glades I commented to another skier that this actually was a bit beyond my ability -- and that that was exactly where I wanted to be in such perfect conditions.
I'm not able to really ski the woods (yet) but lots of people seemed to be having a blast doing so. I'd say Lower Antelope was my favorite run of the day -- apparently it had been groomed before the most recent snow days so the bumps, while plentiful, weren't excessively large. Relatively little skier traffic there, plenty of patches of untracked at late morning. At the bottom I figured I'd ski to the road rather than traverse the woods as I'd wanted to take a trip to the cooler in my car, and there was just one set of tracks down that last stretch. This went great until near the end when I hit the edge of what apparently is some sort of small wooden jump somone has built, at which time my skis stopped and I was launched into my own little version of Shock and Awe. But in 2' of powder, not so bad ... I wound up bagging the trip to the car and walking right back to the single anyway, snowy and with a story to tell ...
Anyway, no lift line to speak of on the single except maybe a few minutes long shortly before noon, at which time I did my one trip of the day up Sunnyside and had a blast on Quacky.
Reports were that it was going to get very windy in the afternoon so I skied nonstop from 9 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., then took just a 15-minute break for an energy bar and coffee. The wind wound up not being too bad, though it did pick up late in the day, with the occasional whiteout. My legs were getting pretty spent but I wanted to wring every last possible minute out of this glorious day and I did so by mostly opting for easier runs the last couple hours, skiing the edges slowly. Still kept finding some untracked stashes and by late in the day the upslope sides of the upper trails were getting filled in by wind. An absolute joy. And my last run included Lower Canyon so it wasn't like I totally wimped out at the end.
I was done at 4:15 p.m. -- a total of seven hours of ski time in conditions that defy words. My third powder day of the year (MRG 2/12 and Cannon 2/15 being the others) and the best ski day I've ever had in the East.
edits: add snowfall during day, other stuff
When I made my decision on that Sunday, Mad River was not reporting any fresh on Sunday morning despite my general preference for Mad River. Clearly the report was not updated to reflect what was happening though I definitely believe I made the right choice as Sunday the 4th was my best day of the season and I enjoyed untracked all day. Let me give you the tour at Jay on a powder day without crowds and you can be the judge