Consistently cold - make that frigid - temperatures have really improved the ski conditions at Gore over the past week despite minimal new snow. We lucked out with Saturday being the warmest (we cracked into the low teens) day out of the last 5 or 6, and some light snow (an inch or two) kept the skiing nice and the mountain looking wintery.
Since Burnt Ridge just opened (actually Echo was open briefly earlier this season), we started our day over there. Sagamore and Echo are both among my favorite trails at Gore, so it felt great to be skiing those again. Both were in great shape - the upper third of Sagamore still had a few chunks that need to be groomed out, but Echo was super smooth and silky. Echo's headwall may have been in the nicest shape I've ever skied it. I could have skied Echo and Sag all day, but we got chilled pretty quickly. There was a slight wind blowing up the trails, which was fine on the chairlift but biting skiing down.
We logged a few gondi runs before lunch, then headed up to the summit in the early afternoon. Sheltered from the wind, the Straight Brook quad was noticeably more comfortable than the Burnt Ridge quad. Chatiemac was our pick of the day. Snowmaking crews have been pounding Chati for two days, and there were piles of soft snow everywhere. Chati was trail #2 that I could have lapped all day, but I settled for two runs before we headed back down to finish out the day with a few more cruisers off the gondi.
If you can ignore the fact that the glades aren't open yet (that's a tall order for me), Gore is skiing great right now. Maybe not every single trail, but there's great skiing to be found in every trail pod. Rumor should open in another day or two. Speaking of glades, the woods look a lot better than they did a week ago. We're probably one decent storm away from getting at least some of the trees in play.
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