After a month sidelined due to a stretched ligament, I returned to the season on a cold late March morning at Burke. The skiing was hardly worth the drive. But after more than four weeks of not skiing and missing some really good days, I had an itch to make some turns regardless of conditions.
And the conditions were truly unsatisfying. Snow was firm, scratchy, hard packed, and fast. Groomers were quickly scraped off due to limited number of routes available for decent. Burke was claiming about 90% of the mountain was “open” but conditions off the groomers left much to be desired. I opted to stick to the groomers.
My runs were limited to Willoughby, Bear Den, and Warren’s Way with a few various combinations. Willoughby skied the worst with several icy and scraped patches. A fine day for a fresh pair of edges. The damage to the newly widened Willoughby was horrific. A classic trail and one of New England’s finest cruising trails has been ruined. Alas, yet another wide boulevard.
3 thoughts on “Game On at Burke”
I would have thought the epidemic of widening trails was over. Lets hope it doesn’t spread to Mittersill.
Sadly, with the Ginn Resort development, it is just the beginning at Burke. Though the development is on hold due to financial issues at Ginn, it will eventually get worse. Cannon is having some sort of ceremony now that the land swap has officially gone down. I would be surprised to not see some cutting back at Mittersill. Hopefully, they just trim back what annoys everyone and not widen the routes.
Steve,
Good to see you’re back in the saddle. I check in on your corner of the web from time to time and noticed a complete lack of new stuff. Hope everything heals up fine and we get some good spring skiing conditions. Pray for snow!
Gregg