Monday, January 2, 2012

Gore Mountain: 01/02/2012

Heading for the gondola. 

The Saratoga Skier and Hiker, first-hand accounts of adventures in the Adirondacks and beyond, and Gore Mountain ski blog.

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.

A bunch of kids, including mine (red jacket), heading for Ruby Run

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.

Mostly firm and fast on the lower mountain, including Wild Air

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.

Open Pit looks ready to go

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.

Foxlair at the end of the day

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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