Who knew all the vacationers would sack the goods?? The powder that had been reported on Thursday was no where to be found. I managed to score 300-400 linear feet of untracked all day. Things certainly could have been worse, if that is a complaint! Essentially, all the main routes were packed down and most of the non-main routes were too. I have become rather snobbish about my snow lately, powder to the people! But not much powder to be found today

Taft Slalom was groomed flat as a pancake. Upper/Middle Hard were both fantastic! Vista Way, generally the worst or the best on the mountain on any given day along with Paulie’s Folly, was the best today with awesome packed powder and occasional soft bumps with quality lines. Profile had good bumps in between the scraped off sections which made it not worth repeating. I was not feeling Zoomer. Paulie’s got the winch treatment last night and was flat as a pancake. Decent bumps was found on skier’s right of Paulie’s Extension down through Avalanche with exception of the section by the Banshee Cut Back (something needs to be done about that area, it is uglier than the Links).

Now for the fun stuff: like getting bowled over by a snowboarder in Kinsman Glade. This was my first descent down this gem. Fourteen hundred continuous vertical feet of glade skiing is about as long of a glade trail as can be found in New England. This trail would be awesome on a powder day. But today, the cover was so ridiculously thin down lower, that there was no safe turn to make without hitting rocks and roots in many places. I was extremely surprised that trail was open.

When the trail got particularly steep and nasty, a snow boarder came crashing down behind me, lost control, and plowed into me. I had just enough time to brace for impact but couldn’t get out of the way. The boarder got tangled up in me and we both started sliding downhill with my head leading the way. Talk about a panic situation! As we slided downhill, slow motion style, it felt like the snow boarder was holding onto either me or my ski. I struggled to spin around and dig in edge to save my life. Finally, after sliding what felt like fifty feet but was probably only twenty and yelling “let go of my ski!” and putting all I was worth into it, I flipped it over and stopped both of us. The boarder was apologetic and asking me if I was okay and thankfully no one was hurt. Sliding backwards head first in a steep glade is scary!

I also sampled Echo Glades for the first time. The glade looked really nice from the traverse but half way down it was hard making a turn without nailing some rock and stump. I had not switched over to my rock skis yet so I was being extra careful and not having much luck. Even on my beater skis, it still needs another foot of snow to be much fun.

Since the powder has dried up from the lift serviced, I will be earning turns tomorrow!