As I predicted in my report yesterday, powder was long gone by Sunday and replaced with packed powder and frozen granular. What I had not predicted was the wind buff both in and out of the trees would be so substantial. The poor setup likely had many folks who did not ski Saturday wondering if there was any powder this weekend. Open slopes and groomers were a crappy hard packed loose granular which left much to be desired whereas wind protected trees sported decent packed powder.
On our first run, I actually made a few nice turns down The Goat before running into scraped and icy conditions at the S turn under the Freezer which is always a suspect spot on the mountain. We continued down Green Mountain Boys which also had nasty loose granular surfaces and skied into North Glade. With the Freezer and Tram off line for half the day yesterday, I was hoping that the Tram Side glades would have conditions than Stateside which took the full brunt of eight hours of traffic. Unfortunately, the wind buff even terrorized the woods and North Glade was no exception with variable wind buffed snow and general thin cover. A work out for the first run of the morning to say the least (especially considering I was already hurting from Saturday). The snow was better lower in North Glade but not worth a repeat.
Upon arriving back at the Tram Plaza, we were surprised to find the Tram had at least a two car wait and the Freezer was not turning. Chairs were not even loaded on the Freezer despite almost no wind and a Snow Report that claimed all lifts would turn on Sunday. We decided to jump on the Metro Quad and see what the wind protected trees in the Stateside area had to offer.
Sure enough, great snow was still to be found in Timbuktu. Fine packed powder despite some thin cover was ours for the taking. After a few turns, I took a fall that I had no business taking. I looked incredulously at the thin cover snow pack when I should have been looking incredulously at my skis. I continued down Timbuktu at full tilt before going over the handle bars and landing on my side. My partner Dan suggested taking some pictures but I opted out preferring to be in better form for the camera. After making a few more turns, I felt that distinct unnerving sensation of my skis going “instant tele” AT style even though I had regular alpine bindings. I knew something was wrong and went down intentionally in a sideways slide. Sure enough, the core had split open under my boots.
“I am done”” I told Dan before he realized the damage was to my skis and not my person. After a brief lament about the shame of a broken ski on such a fine Blue Bird tree skiing afternoon with good company, I looked on the bright side realizing I had not wasted money on a lift ticket since I had a season pass. We made a safe traverse out of the woods onto Derrick which had fantastic soft packed powder. I was able to make some damn fine turns down Derrick considering I had a busted ski under foot. After getting full of myself about making nice looking turns on a busted ski and occasionally lifting up my heal to show off my damage, I almost went over the handle bars lower down on Derrick where the snow was more diced up. It would have been a fantastic Blue Bird day to lap The Jet. C’est dommage.