After skiing on closing weekend at Sugarbush the day before and missing out on the foot of fresh that Wildcat received, I headed over to Pinkham notch to partake in closing weekend at Wildcat. The storm was not supposed to move so quickly and I had expected Sunday to be the better day at Wildcat. Much to my chagrin, no new snow fell over night and all the powder from the day before had been completely tracked out.

Upper Wildcat yielded pleasant natural packed snow with occasional bumps. Regardless of missing the powder, it was nice to ski on true packed powder instead of frozen, wet, or corn snow. I ducked into some trees which were fun and had very nice packed snow. No left over powder to be seen. Mid-mountain started to see the effects of warmer temperatures and frozen manked snow on Middle Catapult. By lower mountain, the frozen mank was complete and groomers were better than natural snow. Visibility was non-existent and the groomed snow on Bobcat was teeth rattling.

Hoping to find some sloppy seconds, I opted for the former gondi line on my next run. Lift Lion was well bumped so I crossed over to Top Cat where I found delightfully pleasant soft and packed snow with natural bumps and features. Eventually, a rope on Top Cat guided me back towards Lift Lion where there was a rope off the bottom of the trail. All looked well, so I ducked into Lower Lift Lion for delightful and surfy left over chewed up powder. Delightful!

Riding high on my horse having correctly evaluated Lower Lift Lion as being worthy of being open, I spied tracks continuing down onto Black Cat. I choose to duck again which was a bad decision in hind sight. I correctly identified skier’s left as the best and least rocky line and turns were delightful for a while. But eventually, the natural base under the foot of new snow ran out. I had come to the mid-mountain mank line and the new snow had fallen on mostly bare ground below this point. Survival skiing is no problem but skiing over boulders can be treacherous.

One such boulder caught my ski and sent me over the handle bars. Not normally a terrible crash, this location was not ideal for a landing as my chest hit yet another rock. The landing knocked the wind out of my lungs. I laid on my back taking deep and steadying breaths, anxious to get my wind back so I could perform a dreaded full body inspection. Thankfully, once I got my wind back, I was able to sit up, stand up, move around, cough, and trunk twist without any signs of serious damage. However, I was bruised and unsure of potential internal injuries, so I erred on the side of caution and called it a day.

Having ducked ropes extensively throughout the last ten years, I have almost never encountered a situation in which I thought the duck was not worth it in hind sight. I will admit that in this case, I was somewhat over zealous in ducking a rocky liftline in late spring with only new snow covering the ground.

It is unfortunate that ski areas opt for ropes instead of thin coverage signs when trails merit caution instead of closure. Often times, closed trails have the best snow on the mountain. Which was the case in Lower Lift Lion. However, the inconsistency of roping trails can be an issue when trying to determine which trails are roped needlessly and over-cautiously versus which trails are truly not worth skiing even for the most adventurous and equipment damage averse skiers.