Category: March

2006-2007 Season, Jay Peak, March, Powder Day

After Three Brutal Days of Cold, Spring Arrives With Some Rain

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This was a weird, interesting, and occasionally really fun day of skiing. After a quick up and down the Jet Chair, I started off the morning with my skins on for the first time since December. Nice to be earning some turns again as the powder machine has finally been turned off and fresh snow required hiking. Unfortunately, temperatures were warm this morning and the fresh untracked was heavy and difficult to ski. Still a fun adventure was had with a combination of lift serviced and earned turns this morning.

Finally began my lift serviced activity around 11a after my morning jaunt. While switching to alpine gear at the car, the sun changed to rain. Not sleet, not hail, not freezing rain, etc. Nothing crystalline about the quality of the precipitation. The precipitation was being absorbed into my jacket instead of bouncing off. It was a fantastic two months of below freezing temperatures without a thaw, but the melt out begins today. Thankfully the base is still very deep. At one point today, I plunged my pole down into the snow below the handle!

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2006-2007 Season, Jay Peak, March, Powder Day

Banner Day at Jay: Untracked Powder All Day

If next week’s storm turns out to be rain and washes everything away and we do not get any more snow, I will end my lift serviced portion of the 06-07 season a very happy man. This was the day I had been waiting for since the lifts started turning. Easily the best day of the season and a top five day for my skiing career.

After having skied hard open to close at Burke on Friday and Cannon on Saturday, I originally planned to take it easy on Sunday. Probably only ski until noon time or so, then warp up the weekend. One of my little toes had been extremely sore lately from my neglect and abuse, and I knew Sunday would be painful. The original plan was Mad River Glen, but they did not report any new snow from last night whereas Jay reported eight inches. A no brainer, I changed my plans. Dare I say Jay under reported eight inches? Well, maybe that was the official number but the woods were socked full of goodies. When I got to Jay, eight inches on the trails sounded about right actually. It proceeded to snow all day long with a few puking sessions thrown in for good measure. Hard to even guess what the total was by the time I left at 4p, but lines were already been replenished for the next day.

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2006-2007 Season, Cannon Mountain, March

Great Challenging Skiing at Cannon

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After a Powder Day warm up at Burke due to the lifts being closed at Cannon on Friday, I made my way back to the promised land with Dave on Saturday. Despite Cannon claiming up to eight inches of fresh, the wind picked the mountain clean as we found out on after getting first tracks off the first tram down Taft Slalom to Upper and Middle Hard. The trails featured two to three inches of wind packed fresh snow on top of a firm base. Taft Slalom skied excellent as did Upper Hard but firm moguls under the new snow on Middle Hard proved difficult to negotiate for a first run.

Since no fresh snow was to be found on the main trails, we ducked into the woods and found more of the same with two to three inches of fresh snow on average. Things were starting to warm up as the sun came up and softened things up to the point of melting. We continued to hunt the woods until lunch time when we opted for burgers at The Lift and then headed to the summit to tackle Tramline. With barely more than one hundred inches of snow, it was hard to believe Tramline was open even with the dense base building snow from the recent blizzard. Sure enough, Tramline was a total disaster and should not have been open to the public. Tramline featured two pinches with a near mandatory sidestep over rock and dirt. The crux maneuver below Tower One was almost child’s play compared to the less than heroic side stepping in key pinch locations. Tree skiing continued later that afternoon with Dave heading home shortly after Tramline. Much excitement was head in the trees on my spiritual home mountain.

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2006-2007 Season, Burke, March, Powder Day

Powder Day at Burke Mountain

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After an aborted Cannon Mountain attempt; which blew away in the 50 MPH winds, Sledhaulingmedic, NHPH, Dave, and I went with the next best closest option with the least likely chance of wind hold: Burke. Why I even thought Cannon would be open is beyond me. I was just so pumped up to be skiing Cannon at its prime with fresh snow… rather blind not to expect winds blowing south to north to knock Cannon off line.

We got going at Burke around 10 A.M. after working out the logistics. The Willoughby Quad was turning when we got there but we were warned it was being shut down soon. We got three excellent runs off the summit, including Willoughby, Doug’s Drop into Little Chief, and East Bowl before the plug was pulled. East Bowl was fantastic but it was hard to get up much speed with the nice and dense powder. Of course, the traverse back was brutal, but I had to show off Burke’s signature trail. The Poma lift was more than adequate for our needs and proved the surface lifts have their place.

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2005-2006 Season, Mad River Glen, March

Painful Set Back at Mad River Glen

Sunday at Mad River Glen was the culmination of a week’s vacation celebrating my return to fully functional condition following a three month recovery period due to a broken elbow and two weeks of taking it easy as I eased myself back into the world of skiing. With much soreness and fatigue, I got myself to Mad River Glen to use my second of three prepaid Mad Cards believing that it would be the last day of operation for the venerable Single Chair.

While getting dressed in the Base Box, I managed to slam my elbow into a hard wood table not once, but twice. The result was a locked up elbow that could not fully bend due to swelling. After massaging the swelling away from the painful nerve and joint motion area, I finally felt well enough to take a run.

Up the Single Chair I went, greeted with a warm air and overcast sky. I opted for Fall Line for the first run since it skied so well earlier in the week. However, the weather had since changed leaving a crusty mess that made for poor conditions on Fall Line. Halfway down the trail, I came across an icy thin cover section on which I lost edge pressure and took a nasty fall during which I banged my elbow. Once again my elbow locked up and provided my nervous system with a wide array of painful sensations. I deemed my Sunday at Mad River Glen over upon my return to the Base Box at which point the swelling would not go down and I could not obtain normal elbow motion.

After a few days of rest, the pain and swelling went away and I was ready to return to Mad River Glen the following Saturday to close out the Ski Area on its final day of operation.