This is the time of year where you actually want it to be warm for skiing. With the snow now going through daily freeze-thaw cycles, the sun is a skier's best friend. A hard freeze Friday night had us worried that the upper mountain black diamonds - Gore's best spring skiing trails - might not soften on Saturday, but the strong April sun worked is magic.
With the overnight cold temperatures in mind, we took our time getting to the mountain Saturday morning. The annual pond skimming competition was getting ready to go off just after we arrived. I'm glad I wasn't skimming / swimming - the air temperature was 30 degrees a little before 11am.
By the time we made it to the top of the gondi Uncas was starting to soften and we could see a good number of skiers on Lies. Good sign. Sure enough, Lies and Open Pit were in prime spring condition. Big bumps on Lies, smooth corn on Open Pit. We didn't ski Hawkeye or Chati, but from the lift it looked like they weren't getting quite enough sun to soften up. And for the first time in quite a while, we never even tried the glades - too crunchy, even though the coverage looked great. Not that we complained.
When we eventually left the summit, we made a couple laps on Topridge and Uncas. Lies may be my overall pick of the day, but Uncas was really nice too. Topridge wasn't as nice as we had hoped - it had the thinnest coverage of any trail we skied and hadn't been groomed overnight.
We did have one minor incident at the start of the day that serves as a reminder that families should have a plan in case they get separated. On the first run, Beth and I skied from the top of the gondi down Uncas to the Straightbrook chair. I thought Daniel was ahead of us, but he had gone down Foxlair back to the base instead. Fortunately Daniel did the right thing and just waited for us at the gondi base and we got re-grouped quickly enough.
Assuming Gore's open next weekend (a good bet) and the weather cooperates, we're in for one more weekend. Even if that doesn't pan out, I feel like we can finally put our skis away satisfied with a great season.
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