You could look the skiing today from a glass-half-full / glass-half-empty perspective. On the one hand, there's a respectable amount of terrain open, the mountain absorbed a huge number of holiday skiers with minimal lift lines, and the snow was overall better than the advertised machine groomed loose granular. On the other hand, last weekend's dismal weather dealt a big setback to what had been one of the best early seasons in recent years.
We found the best snow on the lower mountain trails: Showcase, Sleighride, Wild Air. Snowmaking and grooming crews did a good job getting those resurfaced after last weekend's thaw. We ventured down Sleeping Bear on the North Side in the late morning and found it didn't really warrant a return visit.
Visibility was poor for the summit trails so we spent minimal time up top. What we skied up there was generally pretty firm and fast. Other skiers told me later that Chati and Hullaballoo were both good - too bad for us that we almost skied Hulla and chose Headwaters instead.
We'll probably wait for conditions to improve rather than go back tomorrow, but it was good to see that Gore had a good day attendance-wise. Coverage on the open trails is good thanks to snowmaking, what we need now is an extended stretch of favorable snowmaking conditions to improve the trails and some natural snow to get the woods and glades in play. Two weeks ago it seemed we were just one storm away from skiing the glades, now we've been knocked back to just the thinnest coating of snow in the woods. There's plenty of winter ahead.
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