Gore Mountain: 02/18/2012

Snow - remember?.. it's that white stuff that falls from the sky - made today a bad day for pictures but a good day for skiing. Just an inch or so fell, but it was enough to soften the trails and add a wintery feel that's been missing for much of this snow-starved season.

Beth skiing Hawkeye

Since it's the start of the February vacation week, we knew the grooming and snowmaking crews would have the mountain in as good shape as possible. Our first run of the morning confirmed it: the snow on Wild Air was as nice as we've seen all season.

Some surprisingly nice glade skiing en route to the High Peaks chair

It actually started out quite sunny in the early morning, but not long after we headed up to the summit area the clouds rolled in, and by around noontime a light but steady snowfall spread across the mountain for the rest of the day.

At the summit, Hawkeye and Lies were in similar condition to last weekend: nice, edgeable snow. Open Pit was a bit firmer and faster, but still good. Like last weekend the Straightbrook Glades were open, but a few other glades were available too, like Darby Woods and the Tahawus Glade. As expected the woods are thin, but some creative exploration revealed a stash or two that skied surprisingly nicely. Tree skiing has been so limited this year, those few runs we took through the trees on Saturday seemed extra nice.

Lies: my pick of the day (again)

Right after lunch, Beth, Daniel and I split up. Beth wanted to ski the Burnt Ridge trails, while Daniel and I wanted to hit the High Peaks chair and the Darkside. Turns out we should have hit it earlier in the day, because just as we skied up to the High Peaks chair (around 1:45) it experienced a mechanical malfunction and went down for the remainder of the day. We've waited just about all winter to ski the Darkside, I guess we'll just have to wait another weekend. So instead, we skied down to the North Quad and then up to the summit area again before meeting Beth and Sylvie at the end of the day.

Daniel climbing up one of the huge whales of snow on Uncas

Skiers heading up to Gore for the rest of the vacation week should find the mountain in good shape. With the Darkside terrain coming online, more than 80% of the trails are open. Glades are limited - more like early season - but in a nearly snowless winter like this it's great that there's any tree skiing at all. Grooming and snowmaking have the trails in as good condition as they've been all winter. Our family will be heading to Whiteface on Monday, and then back to Gore next weekend, if not sooner.