Suprisingly Better

I was not excited enough to run out the door with skis on my shoulder in an effort to be the first in line thing this morning. Last night thunder shook the house and rattled my windows while a dark sky opened up dropping sheets of rain to the earth’s surface. Later, rain turned into a combination of sleet and hail, before the temperature dropped enough to create snow. According to the Palisades website, we received 4″ of snow overnight. This appeared to be correct based on turns we made on untracked slopes this morning.

Winds were brisk at the tops of most lifts this morning. At the top of Summit Chair, tiny bits of ice were blown into my face by very stiff winds in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 miles per hour. Winds were also strong at the top of Scott and Lakeview Chairs. Temperatures were much colder than they were yesterday when we had sticky spring conditions. My thought this morning was that rushing out to get first chair was just a silly move to have the first opportunity to ski dust on crust.I was wrong!

My assessment was not completely incorrect because some slopes were icy under a thin layer of new snow. God’s Knob offered pleasant snow in the troughs of frozen moguls, but plenty of ice on the tops of moguls that stuck ouut above the new snow. A number of turns I made today on steeper slopes, where winds had been blowing overnight and into the morning, had me holding on for dear life. Smooth slick steeper slopes that were hard as a rock did not bring me comfort. However, we found many empty low angle slopes that were close to heavenly.

Mountain View and other trails off Lakeview Chair were bare of tracks well into the morning hours.

One of the big surprises this morning turned out to be the lack of ski, or snowboard, tracks on trails we chose to visit. Yellow Trail, Rolls and Knolls, and the Poultry Zone brought smiles to our faces as we made turns in fresh snow without the pressure of others attempting to chew it up at the same time. Below Tower 19, just off the top of Summit Chair, was pleasant enough as were areas to the sides of Terry’s Return. As is often the case, Scott Meadow did not disappoint as we etched its blank low angle palette. Powerline, on the Sherwood side was almost devoid of tracks when we painted it with our tight turns.

Art’s Knob late in the morning showing just a handful of tracks.

I guess the long and the short of today can be summarized using the word diversity. Soft snow in between frozen moguls (Expert Shortcut), fields of soft snow (Scott Meadows), and sheets of ice just below ridgelines. We skied as many runs on soft snow as we could find ending the morning glad to have left the warm locker room after fearing we would have been skiing on icy rubble all morning.
At this hour, 3:30 in the afternoon, snow is fall from the sky. Perhaps we will have some more soft snow to track up in the morning.

Enjoy you day,
Andy