Stick Season in New England continues with more cautious exuberance at Mad River Glen. Perhaps a little too much exuberance and not enough caution but can you blame a guy that is snuffing out half a foot of untracked days after the storm? I was hoping for a reasonable amount of relatively safe tree skiing. Despite the untracked heroics, even I had to question how to define reasonable.

Base depths at Mad River are decidedly less than Jay Peak, especially at lower elevation. The woods have significantly more obstacles, sticks, and uncovered blow downs. But cautious skiing and smart line choice yields some fine tree skiing. And by “smart line choice”, I don’t mean chasing untracked into partially covered stream beds (oops) but do mean finding six inches of untracked bliss down one of my favorite birch tree shots in New England.

Both upper and lower elevation trees are lacking for coverage (though for different reasons) so the sweet spot was mid-mountain. Traverses were ugly at best and dangerous at worst but the skiing was bliss between the tees and greens.

Back on the trails, bumps were generally nasty with scraped and icy troughs. Cat Bowl was a skating rink and not a great first run choice. But the groomers were sublime! Upper Antelope skied as fine as I have ever skied it and almost had me considering staying out of the trees for a run or two.

The single was ski on, the sky was bluebird, and the temperature warmed from negative teens to positive twenties. Mad River Glen essentially has all trails open despite a horrid start to the season. Thwacky trees are skiable by those with a sense of adventure. Some may bemoan that the season is over before it has begun. But while ripping up six inches of untracked in the woods, I could only conclude that it is finally just getting started.