Pico, VT 2/20 & 22/00

[Cookie]

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 2/23/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>I tried to talk Obi Wan out of skiing on Sunday, with the holiday weekend and all, but his motto is "We leave no new snow unskied." Besides, he was getting nervous about the 5-day weather projections forecasting rain mid-week. Then I tried to convince him to get an early start, but that didn't work out. So, we rolled into the Pico parking lot at our usual 9-ish time and discovered that we were among the last cars shoe-horned into the last parking lot before management closed the gates and started sending customers over to Killington. The upper mountain was hidden inside a snow cloud most of the day, but the visible terrain looked like a big white marshmellow swarming with ants. In our ten years of skiing at Pico, we've never seen so many bodies trying to occupy the same space at the same time. The liftlines for the two main quads were nearly intolerable (second only to the lines in the ladies' room!). We can usually anticipate 5-6 runs an hour on the lower quad, but the best we could do was only 2 runs an hour. It appeared as though none of the trails we skied had been groomed since the snowfall ended on Saturday. Normally we would have headed up to the summit, but the thought of encountering a thundering herd of humanity, much of it skiing beyond its abilities, together with the zero visibility and ungroomed trials nixed that option. Instead we waited until lunch hour, hoping that the crowds at the summit would thin out. They did, but by that time 49er had become a minefield of heavy moguls and scraped ruts. We thought that maybe Outpost or Little Pico might be other options, but both appeared to have been set aside for racing programs. We finally bit the bullet and headed over to the Triple Slope. No lift lines. Very light traffic. Peace and quiet at last! <BR> <BR>Today everything was much improved. There was still a larger-than-normal mid-week crowd, but all of our favorite trails had been groomed (except Panhandler, which is being set up as a snowboard park. Too bad; it's a fun ski trail.). We did get an early start today and did a couple of warm-ups on Expressway. The sun and heat on the lower mountain told us to get to the top ASAP. That gave us a half-dozen runs on 49er and KA before the summit became the destination of everyone else. On busy days like this, I'm reminded of how unfortunate it is that beginners have so few options anymore at Pico since there's no longer a mid-mountain lift to give them access to several easier trails. There were so many of them on 49er today, and on the weekend, posing a threat to both themselves and other skiers. When we passed by the bank thermometer on our way home, the temperature was showing at 55 degrees in Rutland. It was warm on the hill all day, but not so warm that the lower trails were breaking down into springtime glop. Couldn't have been a better day.