A really nice day at Mad River today. This was my first powder day at Mad River and it was super sweet. The storm total was about sixteen inches as counted through the entire afternoon and including last night. Some upper mountain trails fared poorly during the rain storm and some exposed mogul tops were in a sad frozen looking state. In a matter of fact, I side cut around the Waterfall on Paradise because the main line looked particularly unfriendly. But for the most part, everything filled in nicely with the best snow (of course) in the trees.
My morning started off just peachy. After a 5:30a alarm to account for slower then normal travel times, I went out to warm up my car only to find that the drive had yet to be plowed. After a pathetic attempt at driving up the drive way with almost a foot of snow on the ground, I proceeded to shovel out a lane for one of my tires doing the bare minimum work to allow my car access to the road. After half an hour and a couple attempts, I finally whaled my car up the hill, around the corner, and onto the road. Road conditions sucked heading out of St. Johnsbury on Route 2 but were better after getting through Danville. Made it to the parking lot only 10-15 minutes late and the initial line for the single was still working its way through the coral, so I didn’t miss much!
Untracked snow got chewed up pretty quick. Hard hunting for untracked when everyone knows where to go! But occasional untracked pockets were found throughout the early to late afternoon and snow quality was primo even when not untracked. I remarked early in the morning that the snow quality had a calming effect rather than the pumped up feeling I get from blower type snow. It was easy to build up speed too quickly and I found myself checking speed often early in the day as I adjusted to the snow condition. I had the hang of the snow by early afternoon.
Just an absolutely nice and fun day all around. It is unfortunate we had the rain event as I occasionally sunk down to the scratchy base. Some lines revealed less than the ideal base that existed last week. Finally, after much consideration, I bought a Share of the Mad River Glen Cooperative today.