Category: Reports by Event

2007-2008 Season, January, Pats Peak, Racing

Pats Peak: Race One

The first Monday of the new year marked the start of the Pat’s Peak Corporate Race Leagues. Not having raced since college and long having given up high speed ripping for low speed bark chewing, my primary aim of joining a race league was not the skiing but rather the camaraderie. Not to mention night skiing and racing beat my normal Monday activities. Which do not consist of doing anything other than browsing the internet and perhaps an occasional movie.

The Pats Peak course is a typical nearly straight line Nastar course without challenge or much variety week to week. I quickly discovered the novice friendly course required little advanced racing technique which allowed older groomer lovers with high handicapps to top out the results with marginal times. The handicapping system also assumes that younger racers are faster than older racers which is not always true. The best ski racers are never those fresh out of college but rather the seasoned pros and veterans that have logged many seasons on the tours. A benefit for our team was the telemark handicap which suggested that a racer on telemark skis needs a huge point advantage which is not necessarily the case for telemarkers that can alpine turn. Unfortunately for our snowboarding member of the team, the handicap system does not assist snowboarders at all and assumes that they are nearly as fast as skiers.

Regardless of handicap or point structure, our team has a great crew of guys that are fun to ski with. After warm up runs down Cyclone, we made our way over to FIS for inspection and two rounds of dual format racing. I took fourth place on the team with an overall middle of the pack finish. We finished the night out with three runs down Pat’s bump run called Hurricane including a final non-stop top to bottom bump run.

2007-2008 Season, January, Powder Day, White Mountain BC

Powdery White Mountains Backcountry

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With powder long since been tracked up and packed down at ski areas, it was high time to hit the backcountry and sample week old powder. Thus, I voyaged north to the backyard of my heart and sampled what the White Mountains backcountry had on tap. Offerings were substantially better than expected given how many days have passed since the last storm. Six inches of fluff was pillaged with deeper sections up high and in drifts.

Epic turns were had on a particularly sweet and perfectly pitched tight chute featuring sporadic trees and a meandering double fall line. The run ended with somewhat boring final turns on a switchback like route that ended with a skin out to white pastures. Evidence of recent animal tracks of all varieties were abundant in the snow. Most notably, at one point, I was following the tracks of a rather large moose which was somewhat concerning. The silence was blissful and the contact with nature and true rugged backcountry terrain was stunning.

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2007-2008 Season, January, Mad River Glen, Powder Day

Ringing in the New Year at Mad River Glen

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What a way to ring in the new year. While less dedicated skiers were partying and drinking last night, I was setting an early alarm and falling asleep just before 10:00pm on New Year’s Eve. I can understand the draw of New Year’s festivities and celebrations. Many years ago, I was into that scene myself. But as the saying goes, you snooze you loose. Or, rather… you don’t snooze because you are working up a world class hang over for the next morning. You get up late and miss skiing right onto the Single Chair for almost four hours. On a holiday. On a powder day.

I was expecting the skiing at Mad River to be good but not great. Maybe I would find some good powder early morning. Or, maybe I would be nailing boot to knee deep untracked at 2:00pm on my last run of the day. Or perhaps both.

Conditions on the trails were a delightful packed powder due to snow from yesterday and most of today. Groomers skied really nicely with the light powder softening things up, especially on trail edges. Moguls still had some crusties under the new snow which occasionally showed through on the surface. Snow started falling off an on by 10am and began in earnest around noon time. By 2pm, it was starting to come down. Hard.

Trees were skiing amazingly well. Lower elevations only had trace remnants of the thaw/freeze and were not that bad. Upper elevations contained dreamy powder and packed powder conditions. With no waiting for the Single chair until noon, clearly there was not much competition or skier impact to conditions. When lines started building on the Single Chair, I moved over to the Sunnyside Double after my lunch break. I simply could not be bothered to wait two to three minutes on a powder day. Boot buckle deep snow was the general rule. Hitting stuff that had been clearly missed yesterday revealed boot deep untracked with occasional AMAZING drifts of knee deep. Some serious jaw dropping untracked was pillaged this fine morning in the lesser known tree areas. But boot deep untracked was still being scored on my last run at 2:00pm which indicated a fine powder day at Mad River Glen.

Three-quarters down one run, I had to laugh. While sucking wind, I realized how much further I had to go to finish the run and get back to the Single. Jay Peak has turned me into a bit of a powder princess with its wide open mellow powdery trees. Not many runs at Jay truly challenge and those runs are usually scraped down pretty sore if not skied first thing in the morning. It was really nice to rough it up today with Mad River Glen’s challenging terrain offerings. You simply do not get that type of challenge at Jay. Or any where else, for that matter.

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2007-2008 Season, Ashland Back Side, December, Powder Day

Crazy Boot to Knee Deep Back Side Skiing

Sensational boot to knee deep untracked powder was found today in Ashland, NH of all places. Two runs were made, each consisting of approximately four to five sensational powder turns. When life gives you snow and you have some time to kill and an fifty foot drop off your back porch, ski off the back side and rack up some powder vertical while the neighbors look on in disbelief!

2007-2008 Season, December, Jay Peak, Powder Day

Less Than Hoped for Conditions at Jay

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Our epic December in New England is drawing to a close. Powder hounds were out in force this past week trouncing the goods following several feet of new snow on an already bomber base. My hope was that intimate knowledge of Jay Peak would allow me to find some untracked left over from Thursday when seven inches of snow fell at Jay Peak. Unfortunately, despite getting to Jay Peak nearly in time for first chair and immediately skiing through three of my favorite go to tree shots, I was not able to find any significant untracked snow.

Exacerbating the lack of untracked was the fact that I was skiing on my touring gear. Having lodged four impressive and deep gouges in my alpine skis last week at Burke, I dropped them off at the shop last Sunday expecting to pick them up by Friday. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to pick up the skis Friday night leaving to choose whether to leave first thing in the morning with touring gear or have a delayed start to pick up my alpine skis. I choose to ski in touring gear and felt very uncomfortable sliding around on my G-Rides which are super for touring and uphill travel but terrible in tight trees on bumps and hard pack. My skiing was absolutely abysmal and I felt like I was skiing my first day of the season all over again.

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