Sharon
New member
Wow, what a day! Bluebird skies, blazing sunshine, 3400 vertical feet of high speed cruising in the morning, a little glade skiing, soft bumps on Mckenzie and open Slides from 1-2pm!! Skiing with Acid Christ and doing the slides for the first time....priceless.
We hit it just right. We spent the morning cruising, looking for soft snow on piste and in the woods, waiting for the summit to soften in the sun a bit before heading up there around noonish. Took a few screaming runs on Skyward before the gates were open.
Skiing across Slide 1 was the scariest. It is a blue-ice glazed-over waterfall that is absolutely unskiable. This waterfall was no ordinary waterfall. It was at least 150 yards of steep unskiable ice about 30 or so yards wide. It was huge. (pix coming later). We traversed over the top of this on a barely breakable suncrust. The sketch factor was high.
We skied the area between the waterfall and slide 2 in stunted trees first. The snow in between was softening up into a nice cornlike substance, though we encountered every known form of snow surfaces. We had to pick our way through a few tight spots. There was a lot of decision-making required to find the most skiable routes. It was very challenging and rewarding.
The next run we skied Slide 4. Getting there was also sketchy, traversing the icefall again and a few other places where there was blue ice. But once on that sun-drenched slide we found some soft corn. Also a few tight spots. This slide eventually gets choked into a narrow gully where tight turns were required. The small waterfall in the narrow section was skiable.
It was after 2pm when we got out of slide 4 and the slides were closed for the day. We celebrated the loss of our slide virginity with Heinekins on the deck of the mid-mtn lodge in Adirondack chairs, baking in the sun. But we weren't done yet.
We did a couple more runs on Skyward. We got on one of the last chairs of the Mtn Run Lift. Our last run was on MacKenzie. The upper part of this trail was the scariest thing we had done all day. It was very hard unedgeable ice with a double fall-line. We skied this with extreme caution. Serious survival skiing. We were relieved to get to the huge soft bumps on lower MacKenzie. They skied just super.
The lower mountain was very soft corn. Acid Christ got a face shot of corn during our last descent to the base.
Capped off the day with brews on the Cloudspin Lounge deck with the beautiful people of Lake Placid until the sun dipped behind the mountain.
Powder Day tomorrow?
We hit it just right. We spent the morning cruising, looking for soft snow on piste and in the woods, waiting for the summit to soften in the sun a bit before heading up there around noonish. Took a few screaming runs on Skyward before the gates were open.
Skiing across Slide 1 was the scariest. It is a blue-ice glazed-over waterfall that is absolutely unskiable. This waterfall was no ordinary waterfall. It was at least 150 yards of steep unskiable ice about 30 or so yards wide. It was huge. (pix coming later). We traversed over the top of this on a barely breakable suncrust. The sketch factor was high.
We skied the area between the waterfall and slide 2 in stunted trees first. The snow in between was softening up into a nice cornlike substance, though we encountered every known form of snow surfaces. We had to pick our way through a few tight spots. There was a lot of decision-making required to find the most skiable routes. It was very challenging and rewarding.
The next run we skied Slide 4. Getting there was also sketchy, traversing the icefall again and a few other places where there was blue ice. But once on that sun-drenched slide we found some soft corn. Also a few tight spots. This slide eventually gets choked into a narrow gully where tight turns were required. The small waterfall in the narrow section was skiable.
It was after 2pm when we got out of slide 4 and the slides were closed for the day. We celebrated the loss of our slide virginity with Heinekins on the deck of the mid-mtn lodge in Adirondack chairs, baking in the sun. But we weren't done yet.
We did a couple more runs on Skyward. We got on one of the last chairs of the Mtn Run Lift. Our last run was on MacKenzie. The upper part of this trail was the scariest thing we had done all day. It was very hard unedgeable ice with a double fall-line. We skied this with extreme caution. Serious survival skiing. We were relieved to get to the huge soft bumps on lower MacKenzie. They skied just super.
The lower mountain was very soft corn. Acid Christ got a face shot of corn during our last descent to the base.
Capped off the day with brews on the Cloudspin Lounge deck with the beautiful people of Lake Placid until the sun dipped behind the mountain.
Powder Day tomorrow?
But that beside the point, the Slides were closed on Friday for good reason.
