What a surprise to arrive at Gore late (10am) on a holiday and find the main parking lot still half empty. Actually that shouldn’t have been much of a surprise because New Year’s Day hardly ever brings out the crowds. That’s too bad because it happened to be one of the nicest ski days so far this year.
Some overnight lake effect snow dropped several bonus inches on Gore. The new snow, along with a couple inches from Sunday night’s storm dramatically improved the skiing surfaces over what we found last weekend. Plenty of blue sky (a rarity on the days we’ve skied so far this season), crisp temperatures (upper single digits to low teens) and no wind rounded out the day.
Beth stayed home (recovering from a sinus infection and cold) so I just had our two kids with me. Wild Air was in beautiful shape for our warm-up run, with plenty of groomed corduroy and pockets of untracked snow along the sides. Then we skied Uncas to the Straightbrook quad and stayed up top until our afternoon lunch break.
Following a lunch break at the Saddle Lodge, we skied the lower mountain trails for the rest of the afternoon. Twister, which just opened a day or two ago, was a tad scratchy, but Sleighride and Showcase were in great shape. We passed on the trails off the North Quad, having heard that Tahawus and Sleeping Bear were a bit rough.
A day like today would have been absolutely beautiful in the glades, too bad we just don’t have the base yet for the woods to be in play. The storm that’s just getting underway as I write this (apparently it’s been named Hercules) will certainly bring great conditions for this weekend. I’m not sure it’s going to be enough to get the glades open, but perhaps some of the lower-angled glades like Chatterbox will be skiable.
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