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Anonymous
Guest
I was up in the Ravine this weekend (May 5th), and was not all that excited by the snow situation. We had a great winter, but an absolutely abysmal April. Nobody has really mentioned it because the snowpack was so deep, it didn't matter if we got snow or not. I can't even think back to any substantial storms for the entire month. I believe (for VT at least) it was the 8th driest April on record, which may not sound like much, but that's for records of more than 100 years. All those days of dry weather are a double whammy, since not only is there no new snow, warm & sun melts it off. I'm sure the hot days of last week really punched the snowpack as well. <BR> <BR>Now, not to get anyone down, the conditions I experienced were typical early May (although there have certainly been better years). <BR> <BR>Hiking up the Tuckerman ravine trail: <BR>2000'-2500' - minimal snow <BR>2500'-3000' - patchy snow <BR>3000'-4000' - generally snow-covered <BR>Hojo's to Ravine - some snow - mostly rocks <BR> <BR>In the Ravine, the skiing is fine. We would have liked to do a summit to right gully run, but they weren't even remotely connected by snow. I never got to see the east snowfield due to clouds (ranger said there is snow up there) but there was no visible snow in the Alpine Garden flats from above right gully. I'm almost surprised they had the Sherburne trail open, as it seemed to me I've seen equivalent coverage with a rope up. We worked it as hard as we could, and didn't stop skiing until all we could see ahead was about 100-200 yards of bare ground, and we STILL only made it down to around 3400' (just checked the Avi report and now they've closed it). <BR> <BR>Anyway, the skiing is pretty much as expected for early May, although not exactly what one might expect after this winter.