In the nearly 20 years that I’ve been skiing at West Mountain on Wednesday nights, I’m hard pressed to remember a year where the conditions have been as consistently good each week as they have been this year. Although it’s been about a week since the last significant snowfall, the trails we skied last night remained in smooth, dry, packed powder condition with practically no hint of any scratchiness or hardpack below the surface. The cold weather that’s been in place for just about the entire month has certainly been a big factor in keeping the slopes in such nice shape, and it looks as though favorable temperatures will remain in place.
I arrived at the mountain a little bit earlier than usual and had three or four warm-up runs on my own before connecting with our group that eventually grew to around 12 to 15 telemarkers. In keeping with our usual pattern, we mostly skied the Mach and Midway trails off the Northwest Triple until that chair closed, and then finished with a couple more runs off the Summit Double until last chair. Rather than serve up another blurry night-time ski photo, I put my camera away for the night and borrowed the photo above.
The picture above is from Falls Creek Alpine Resort, where they light up Wombat's Ramble, Australia's longest beginner trail (2.2K) for night skiing. If you go, just remember their seasons are upside-down: prime season for skiing is July.
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