Category: 2004-2005 Season

2004-2005 Season, April, Earned Turns, Hillman's Highway, Mount Washington, Sherburne Ski Trail

Hillman’s Highway

Hillman's Area Panoramic

Today was my first time up to the Ravine for skiing (not counting my ski down the Sherburne Ski Trail earlier this year). I should have bailed on Cannon the day before as my legs were shot from skiing mashed potatoes and scraped snow on Saturday. I had debated not even going to the Ravine on Sunday but I knew days like this don’t happen often enough and I would have been missing had I not gone. Additionally, it was likely my last whack at skinning without hiking as well as skiing all the way down to the Route 16 via the Sherburne (though just barely).

The skin up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail was sweet with only one or two bare spots. However, coverage is going quick in a lot of areas. Bridges were exposed fully. I suspect the trail will not be skinable top to bottom without removing skis at least once or twice by next weekend. I was really really tired by the time i reached HoJo’s and had developed painful blisters on my right arch and right hand. I made some adjustments to my equipment to better handle friction locations but the damage was done.

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2004-2005 Season, AlpineZone Meet Up, April, Cannon Mountain, Pond Skimming

AlpineZone.com Meet Up at Cannon Mountain, NH

Cannonball Quad & the Saddle

Last week before the rain storm Saturday morning, the entire mountain was fully covered. This week there was barely any snow on Paulie’s and no snow under the Zoomer Lift with lots of bare spots showing on Avalanche and Zoomer. Not totally unexpected but the damage is considerable when you take into account just how deep the snow cover was a few weeks earlier.

Brian and I met at the Peabody Lodge to share some turns today on this late season foray. The snow surface froze hard overnight and was teeth chattering frozen granular in the morning. I stuck to the groomers which skied okay but were begging for some sun. Things didn’t warm up as fast as i had expected, but around noon time, every trail on the mountain was gold. But by early afternoon, it was mostly mushy mashed potatoes.

Pick of the day was Vista Way for nice soft bumps and fine views with hardly any clouds. Yet another fantastic day at Cannon! I have had more good weather days than bad this year at Cannon, it has been an amazing year. Honorable mention goes to Middle to Lower Cannon for a great run to let the skis run. It is how I opened my season at Cannon and how I closed my season at Cannon.

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2004-2005 Season, Loon Mountain, March

Loon, NH

Dad & Steve at North Peak

Today was a perfect day to take advantage of a free ticket to Loon. My dad and I arrived at 8:30 A.M. to a nearly empty parking next to the mountainside rentals building. Governor Adams base lodge was similarly vacant. My expectations of a light weekend crowd due to the holiday proved correct with ski on lift lines all day on the Kancamagus Quad with only the ticket scanners holding up the line. Ski on lifts all day on the East Basin Double and ski on past noontime on the North Peak Quad with very short waits before noon. Gondola was walk on until 9 A.M. and a four minute wait at 9:30 A.M. Given the short lift lines, the trails still exhibited quite a bit of traffic. I can not imagine this place on a weekend!

Loon is amazingly dedicated to the bumps and puts a lot of mountains to shame with the amount of bump coverage, especially considering their resorty image. That said, most of the bumps sucked this afternoon. Bumps on skier’s left of Lower Flume were firm and scrapped. Same for bumps over on Lower Rumrunner where lines were better and less scraped but still poor conditions. The short bump pitch under the Gondola on Picaroon was a cool idea for introducing bumps to the intermediate skier. But this short bump shot was also scraped and firm. Bumps under the Double Chair lacked good lines and were spread out (i.e. slip slider formed bumps) so I stayed skier’s right under the lift where the snow was softer. Triple Trouble was a treat with good lines. Bumps were on the larger size and still rather firm but not too bad. Definitely the best bumps of the day. Triple Trouble reminds me a little of Middle Hardscrabble at cannon with its twists and unrelenting bumps.

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2004-2005 Season, AlpineZone Meet Up, Magic Mountain, March

AlpineZone.com Meet Up at Magic Mountain, VT

Brian & Steve on Magic Carpet

Another successful AlpineZone.com Meet Up was staged for Magic Mountain in Southern Vermont for late March. Bob, Brian, and I met in the lodge and we ran into MrMagic on the slopes. The morning began with beautiful weather and good conditions though it was cloudy most of the day with clouds burning off to allow for decent views towards the afternoon. Magic Mountain had 100% of its terrain open with about somewhere between a quarter to a third left ungroomed.

We begin with a warm up run down Medium to Vertigo with nice packed powder opening up to some big arcs near the bottom. Next we skied Trick to Wand to Showoff; getting in Trick before it scraped up too much. Over on Talisman, a thin groomed track was run down the center with natural and bumps on either side. I liked skier’s right up top and skier’s left down low while Bob and Brian tended to stay on the rough groomed patch. I wanted to show the guys Broomstick which is a great narrow trail off the top of the mountain. However, Bob’s knee was recovering and needed a stress free day of skiing. Despite Broomstick looking flat, I feared Heart of Magician and Lucifer were likely bumped. I volunteered to inspect by way of Master Magician (a guys gotta have his fun ). I took Master skier’s right and I think I overheard a fellow skier mention the words sick and nuts in the same sentence but I wasn’t sure. Skier’s left was fantastic! I only hit three rocks but I scored nearly untouched snow which was by far the best on the mountain. Later I hit Master again skier’s right through the trees which was dust on crust and dust on ice. Not so good. I found out Broomstick was unfortunately not doable without hitting very user unfriendly bumps on Heart or Lucifer.

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2004-2005 Season, Magic Mountain, March

Magic Mountain, VT

Master Magician

Awesome day done up proper at Magic Mountain. All trails were open despite some thin cover. Action on the groomers got the morning off to a fine start. You could say I began my morning by turning a Trick. Lower sections of the mountain featured ripping groomed snow great for opening up the turns and picking up some speed. Magic is extremely underrated for their groomed terrain. All the groomers except Wizard were great in the morning and stayed great all day. Wizard featured frozen granular surfaces that were not enjoyable in the morning but finally corned up late in the afternoon.

While riding the lift, I spoke with a college kid racing in the Thompson Division (my former racing division when I attended UMass Lowell). The kid skis Stratton all the time due to his girl friend having a Condo at the mountain. He had never skied Magic before and he was raving about the mountain! Another convert, I love it! You just have to ski it on a good day to understand.

For natural snow, things started out very hard with frozen granular surfaces. My legs were not moving quick enough as I was tired and undernourished. Essentially, I was making it look like amateur day on Talisman, Sorcerer, Twilight Zone, Heart of Magician, and Goniff. Talisman and Heart were pretty nice at lower elevations but I did not care much for the unforgiving frozen bumps of Sorcerer. Goniff was significantly better Twilight Zone which is rarely the case.

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