Sunday, January 30, 2011

Gore Mountain: 01/29/2011


Winter days like this were made for skiing: comfortable temperatures in the 20s, periods of blue sky and some snow, and the ski mountain near 100% open.


With very little additional natural snowfall over the past week, conditions weren't quite as good as what we had last weekend. The woods are a bit thin, and steeper summit trails like Hawkeye and Open Pit were firm on their headwall sections or in high traffic areas. This of course can be avoided by skiing the better snow that accumulates at the trail edges. An exception was Uncas, where snowmaking operations during the day produced a great soft snow surface edge-to-edge that made it my pick of the day. Cruisers on the lower mountain like Wild Air and Sunway were generally in very good shape.

Soft snow under the guns on Uncas - my pick of the day

In the afternoon, after Daniel's Mountain Adventure program, we explored quite a few glades along with my friend Jim and his two kids. We found some of the best snow in the Mineshaft and Straightbrook glades, but many of the glades could stand another round of natural snowfall.

Firm but edgeable bumps on Chatimac

At this writing, it appears that we may get another significant round of snowfall mid-week: exactly what the mountain could use.

Afternoon snow squall

1 comment:

  1. Would love to use some of your Gore photos for an article I need to submit tomorrow to an online travel magazine. Possible to get your permission to use with credit?

    ReplyDelete