Monday, January 17, 2011

Gore Mountain: 01/16/2011

Five inches of new snow Saturday afternoon and night improved the trails to even better condition on Sunday.  And after having skied in the snow for a good part of the day Saturday, we got blue skies for Sunday.

Blue skies for a warm-up on Twister


Echo

Although we skied all over the mountain, we made a point of hitting some of the trails that we had missed the day before, like Echo on Burnt Ridge. The new manmade snow on Echo (it had been blown over the previous several days) was noticeably different from the primarily natural snow surfaces on the rest of the mountain: a bit chunky and granular, but still very good. Good enough, in fact, to warrant multiple runs. It certainly is nice having the Burnt Ridge trail pod online now, and seeing snowmaking operations well underway on Sagamore.

More Echo

Still Echo

But no matter where you skied on Sunday, conditions were excellent. Favorites were (you guessed it) Echo, Uncas, Twister, Wild Air, Hawkeye. I would have liked to take a few runs on Rumor, but never quite got there. I'd be interested to hear how the snow there held up after the excellent skiing on Saturday. I tried to find a trail that wasn't in great shape, and it was difficult, but Open Pit was in pretty scratchy condition. Odd, since it had just recently been blown by the snowmakers.

Even high-traffic Foxlair was in beautiful shape mid-day

Summit trees caked in snow

Skiers who have been waiting for good conditions to get out should grab their skis: we're there. Apparently many had been waiting, because Sunday appeared to be Gore's busiest day so far this season. I'd guess that most skiers left with smiles.

Squalls were all around, but Gore stayed in the clear all day

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