There are many lessons to be learned from this past storm. And even more lessons to be learned from my decisions and reactions—in many ways sound but yet still lacking. One of my key management tenets is to “assume your assumptions are wrong”. But I failed to apply this to my storm chasing decision making process. I had the perfect plan if only my assumptions were correct. But they were mistaken in many ways.

Formulations for the powder day decision began with the fact that Magic Mountain and Pico Mountain would both be closed on Wednesday and open on Thursday with a full component of untracked powder. Targeting Thursday instead of Wednesday presupposed Northern New England wouldn’t get much snow, that the storm would start late morning, and untracked would never amount to more than a few inches due to being constantly skied in. This season of all seasons, I should have known not to bet against Cannon.

Another unforeseen monkey wrench in the plan was Killington Season Passholders pillaging Pico the day after their powder day at Killington. I relied upon memories of my last day at Pico, a two foot weekend dump in which I got uncontested first tracks down Summit Glade with no line at the chair. But I forgot about the situational context. I forgot that everyone else knew what I knew about Pico opening Thursday. I forgot there would be absolutely no surprises with this storm.

The lineup for the Golden Express Quad was impressive. A massive sprawl of powder hungry enthusiasts that resembled a funnel more than a line. Pico’s lift operations staff were unconcerned about the lack of line organization. Forty-five minutes after first chair, the lift coral was still being built. Lift operations staff deliberately sabotaged my attempts to improve line efficiency. When I pleaded my case that I was a single, I was told to “wait in line until the singles line is built.” I dumbfoundly exclaimed “but I am single!” as I watched chair after chair ascend the line with only two or three passengers.

My first run was a railroad tracks ripper down the cord courtesy of further Mountain Operations problems and a lack of appropriate communications. The Summit Quad was turning but not scheduled to open until 10:00 A.M. due to mechanical issues. Which would have been nice to know before every powder hound at lineup wasted a run. Another funnel onto the Golden Express saw me hiking to Outpost in a mad dash to score some untracked. Finally, Bronco yielded the goods but the powder madness was on. It was difficult to enjoy the run with so many other skiers nearby and thoughts of needing to rush back to the chair.

After another turn on the Outpost on Sidewinder, I lined up for the summit lift which didn’t begin operations until 10:15 A.M. to the tune of mutiny in the air. I was about forty chairs off the lead–already way behind. Pure untracked would be difficult to find. I had one shot at it and needed to choose my trail carefully. I went with Upper Giant Killer which was blown off at the top but yielded a few hundred feet of untracked before flattening out.

Pico is a sad mountain for a powder hound. Pico is incredibly flat and only has a few trails with enough pitch for powder. And those trails only have short pitches no more than four to five hundred vertical feet of moderately pitched steeps that end on a flat out. Trees are available but extremely limited. Just a single spin on the chairlift and in one run every bit of untracked worth skiing from a given chair could be gone excepting a few limited stashes.

Thankfully, Little Pico eventually opened at 1:00 P.M. Thanks to the local race team, Little Pico spins for three hours so the kids can bash gates on B-Slope. That left a completely untracked A-Slope—Pico’s best trail—ripe for the picking with hardly any skiers aware the lift was open.

A-Slope is a wide trail interspersed with a dozen random tree islands and a wide variety of options and sidestashes. Line choices are amazingly diverse and the pitch is quite substantial and significantly steeper than anything else at Pico. The main face of A-Slope drops steeply with plenty of cliffs to huck and the powder can drift insanely deep. Lapping A-Slope a half dozen times more than made up for a lack luster day considering how much untracked snow Pico began the day with.

The lessons learned? Don’t call an audible against Magic Mountain. When metro gets slammed with over two feet of new snow, go for the first day of the storm even if the snow won’t be the full quantity of untracked. Good terrain beats good base depth. And Pico not opening Wednesday doesn’t mean jack when the powder hound passholders of Killington come looking for more after tracking out the main mountain. It was a great day, but definitely the least epic foot and a half powder day I have ever had.