Yesterday's wet granular conditions are today's frozen granular surfaces. Sure, the skiing was better on yesterday's soft snow, but at least today the mountain felt like winter might return.
Snow was in the air, but never accumulated to more than a fraction of an inch over the course of the day. Temperatures were cool enough for snowmaking, but never plummeted during the afternoon as had been forecast. We spent just about all of the day on the lower mountain, other than a quick run up to the summit in the early afternoon to check out conditions there.
Wild Air, which had been all ridges and ditches (hard to call those things "moguls") yesterday, was groomed out. About the only place on the mountain with soft snow was Headwaters, where snowmaking guns provided some nice conditions.
Snowmaking operations were also underway on Lies, Open Pit and Cloud. In fact, that's exactly what was happening on those same trails a week ago when we skied on December 26. Other than Wild Air coming on line this week, snowmakers have been unable to increase terrain offerings - evidence of just how hard it has been for ski areas throughout the northeast to get this ski season jump-started. To be clear, the snowmaking crew at Gore deserves a lot of credit for working hard and doing a great job despite the unfavorable weather conditions they've had to work with.
With the coldest air of the season now at our doorstep, at least the snowmakers will have something to work with for the rest of this week.
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