Mountain Creek, NJ 1/26/00

[slatham]

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/27/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Didn't think my first post would be from Mountain Creek - or my first day on ski's in about two years would be there (we had a baby girl last winter - and the skiing wasn't too great either?) - but I picked the right day! I just couldn't justify the 3 hour drive to Plattekill (best powder area south of VT and very MRG-ish) given the LI/NYC/NJ traffic and snow - probably would have been 5 hours. As it turned out, the 1:45 drive to MC was 2 1/2. <BR> <BR>They reported 14-16" new - maybe inflated, but it was 12+" no doubt. Didn't look like they got much if any icing. Basically the entire mountain is open and has good coverage. The only trail where I ran into serious ice problems was pipeline, where they seem to have made snow a bit on the wet side. Otherwise, either perfectly groomed packed NATURAL powder or 3-6" ungroomed powder - a lot of the snow fell the day before when they were open, limiting the freshies. A few places on the sides/woods had a true 12". Crowds were pretty thin, but I left a 1:30 and expect the PM - after school/work let out - got busy. <BR> <BR>But these conditions in NJ??? Probably not since the grand old winter of '96! Hope were setting up for a repeat. Have plans to be in VT in March and I'd like it to still be winter rather than spring skiing. <BR> <BR>All in all a good start back on ski's. THINK SNOW!