2007-2008 Season, March, Pats Peak, Racing

Pats Peak: Race Nine

Tough racing for me tonight due to barely getting to the mountain in time for the first run. My car has been having some troubles lately including needing new breaks and a wheel bearing issue. Due to the need for repairs, I did not want to drive my car the two hours round trip to Pats Peak. Thankfully, my significant other was able to leave work early and offer usage of her vehicle for the evening. Due to difficulties leaving work in a timely fashion, I arrived at home way behind schedule. Then it took me fifteen minutes to figure out how to lower the passenger seats in my significant other’s car. Suffice to say, I was slightly rattled by the time I was on the interstate en route to Pats Peak.

After a quick change, I grabbed my skis and headed up to the summit. Without a warm up run or course preview, I skied down to the start gate on Twister and jumped right into the gate barely in front of the second round of skis. Out of breathe and rather unfocused, I had no time to prepare for my first run. Adding to my difficulties was a horrid start ramp which made pole placement and a starting kick difficult. Running dead last on the course only added insult to injury. My second run was much more focused featuring a much better start but hardly anything impressive. Racing in the last slot ensured a scraped and rutted course. My time was improved but hardly a very good result.

As a team, we finished a solid second for the night and a respectable third on Monday nights for the season. Our placement was good enough to make the Finals for all nights on Thursday. Though we will certainly be slaughtered by the better skiers from other nights (especially without our top point scorer), it should be a good conclusion to a fun race season. After eight years of not racing, it was fun to be back in the race course though I am unsure if it was worth the two hour round trip drive once per week.

2007-2008 Season, Cannon Mountain, March, Powder Day

Best Day of the Season at Cannon

Cannon got a foot Wednesday and at least a foot into today and it was still snowing when I left the mountain bringing the season total to date (with over a month of potential snowfall left) to an unreal (for Cannon) 214″. Untracked from mid-week combined with last today’s snowfall for many knee deep, and often times deeper, lines from open to close. Powder billowing over my shoulders and exploding into my face never gets old. I didn’t even bother counting the face shots. It would be easy to forget the best of days earlier in the season after a month or three delay, but I think I still remember them accurately when saying today was my best day of the season to date.

Earlier in the week, I had prepared for Jay on Saturday and had planned to meet Nhski for first chair. Last night things changed. Forecasts were leaving Jay out of the storm and the big prize was Ssouthern Vermont through the Northern Whites featuring a belt of snow up right through the notch. Cannon would not come out with the most snow but it will certainly be up there in totals. Last night I decided to bail on Jay and make plans for Cannon instead.

Fortunately, I was able to meet up with some sensational skiers I have had the pleasure of sharing turns with before and make a new buddy as well, sweet. Lifts were on wind hold when we got to the mountain and I was on the fence about heading north to Burke or south to Tenney. Ultimately, I decided to return to Tenney. But shortly after leaving Cannon, I got the call that Cannon was opening, turned around, and still made the 8:30am tram (barely). Sweet!

No pictures today but pictorial evidence is usually lacking on the best of days by design, not intent. When you are skiing boot to knee deep untracked on your favorite terrain, it is hard to slow down and pull out the camera. Today ranks right up there with the epic reports from seen previously this season from Northern Vermont. If Cannon received 300″ average snowfall a year, I don’t think I would ski anywhere else. Snowbanks just south of the notch were so high that you could not see the north bound traffic from the south bound lane. Still another month of the snowy season to go? Bring it on.

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

Foot of Fresh at Mad River Glen

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With an expected “18-30 inches by Thursday morning” as forecasted by many weather prognosticators, including MRG’s own Josh Fox, this storm bonked early but still delivered a foot of fresh to Mad River Glen. While Wednesday was a spectacular day and well worth a vacation day, it was a far cry from a minimum of 18″. While I had hoped for epic, I was willing to settle for just sensational.

By the time I had bought my ticket and geared up, six dozen skiers had queued up for the Single at 8:30 A.M. I quickly did the math. Given how many chairs were on the line, I was just as well skiing right onto the double rather than waiting for the Single for first run. The line would stay strong averaging an acceptable five to ten minute wait throughout the morning but got down to three to five minutes after lunch.

Ticket window folks were warning of no refunds if the mountain went on wind hold but Mad River kept all three lifts spinning all day despite some occasionally harsh winds. The snow was a dry but dense and wind blown variety that was somewhat grabby yet fast. No dusty light powder on top either but rather solid base building stuff which the mountain needed. Occasionally, I could sink down to the rock hard frozen base when cutting a hard turn through the foot of new snow. This storm will provide a sensational base for the Friday evening event to put the fluffy white stuff on top of.

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2007-2008 Season, February, Pats Peak, Racing

Pats Peak: Race Eight

While not a good night for the team, I turned in some decent results and had my highest individual finish at 10th overall. Our team leader pulled five of us together for the race but we were hurting with two of our point scorers skiing out west this week. Said team leader also pulled himself together despite feeling horridly ill which effected his performance and our top point man had a bad night. Despite my great performance, the team will probably drop tonight’s race results as our lowest team score of the season.

Too bad my edges were not sharpened for this race. My race skis have have had at least days use since the last sharpen and tune. Despite two good runs, I never felt connected with my skis. I could have done even better had I really been dialed in with a freshly tuned pair of skis.

I really appreciate the layout and design of the tonight’s course. It was the best course lay out all year, in my opinion. Lots of DNFs and DSQs. The course really punished skiers who were too aggressive and not clean. Some of the turns were probably too aggressive for that type and style of course. Two straight gates out of the start got me going much faster than I had anticipated and I was not quite high enough on some of the gates as a result. Many skiers were not even beginning their turns until getting to the gate resulting in some pretty sensational traverses to save the run. My type of course and the results speak for themselves in that it was not most peoples’ type of course.

Individual Race Results from Pats Peak Monday Week Eight

Team Race Results from Pats Peak Monday Week Eight

2007-2008 Season, February, Jay Peak

A Groomer Day at Jay

Today was a dust on crust special at Jay Peak. All the three inch untracked powder you want with little competition if you did not mind bottoming out on a frozen hard packed base. My feelings predicted that things would be fairly nice this morning with a few inches of fresh. Instead of fluffy blower, we could have used heavy and dense snow. My first three tree runs each got progressively more low angle. Ultimately, I decided today would be a groomer day. While discussing the conditions with some folks, I said “this has been the most groomers I have skied in a day all season, perhaps the most groomers I HAVE skied all season.” That about sums up todays conditions at Jay.

Jet was skiing really nicely throughout the morning. I hammered Jet for several runs before deciding that I was not going to wait for a line longer than a minute or two to ski groomers. Shortly before noon time, I headed back to the Chalet and headed home.

You can tell it is vacation week by the conversations you overhear. I was dumb founded by the amount of times I heard something along the lines of “wow, the conditions are great today!” Which, they were, if you enjoy skiing groomers. But I could have been doing that (more enjoyably) at Cannon on $8 worth of gas instead of $21. This is a big difference in my new location. While living in Vermont, the half hour of additional driving to Jay was always a worth while gamble. Whereas the forty minutes door to door Cannon drive time versus over two hours to Jay is a different story if the woods are not there.