Gore Mtn, May 1, 2011

Hickorymartha, my friend Chuck and I hit Gore on Sunday, May 1.  We hiked up the Tannery work road to the base of Top Ridge.  There are some huge washouts on the work road.  They will need some major earth moving equipment to repair them.

From the base of Top Ridge we continued hiking up the Tannery trail.  There was snow, but gaps on Tannery.  We put our boots on sitting on a chair at the base of Straight Brook Quad, then put on skins just above the base of the lift.  We skinned about 3/4 of the way up Rumor, before taking our skis off and booting from there.  We were hoping to ski from the top, but it is melted out at the very top.  We skied from just below the top on creamy soft corn.  The bumps were still there, but much more subtle than at the end of the official ski season.  We ran into Rick (Duck TR I think) at the base of Rumor.  He was out for a ski to celebrate his birthday.  We then did a lap on lies.  We skied lies from the very top.  Skiing was great.  There is still alot of snow.  Top to bottom on lies without seeing a rock or bare spot.  We then skied all the way down to the base of the Top Ridge triple.  We did have to walk across a few grassy spots on the way, but made it without taking our skis off. Finished of the day with some cold ones in the parking lot.
 
All I can say, is the skiing was fantastic.  Might be the two best spring runs of the season.  I'm hoping I can get another day or two in before it all melts.  

Kman - thanks for the report, sounds like a great day.

I've never hiked Gore (for skiing) and was wondering about your route choice.  Why Tannery vs other options? Is the road normally easier to hike or more solid, than a trail? Is that route shorter than Showcase to Cloud?

Great TR K man. My wife asked me what I wanted to do for My 60th Birthday and of course I said, SKI. She didn't ski but she hiked with me. Ski day 102, 70 degrees and sunshine and I have some sunburn to prove it. As I started my climb up Rumor I saw 2 tele skiers starting down and I knew right away it had to be Kirby and Martha "they both can really rip."  As K man said," Just great corn snow and no bare spots on Rumor or Lies."  Thanks again K man, for the cold one. Remember IT AIN'T OVER TILL ALL THE SNOW MELTS.

I don't have time to hike, but I certainly would if I could.

Would Barton Mines Road or another unnamed road (yellow) be a good idea to access darkside trails? I bet Hallabaloo (blue) still has great coverage.

Duck T. R. wrote

...IT AIN'T OVER TILL ALL THE SNOW MELTS.

Denis... that's the jeep road that comes in at the bottom of Lower Steilhang that comes across Barton's land. (Anybody know the name of it?) Don't think they'd be happy about skiers using it without permission.

You're killing me Duck...Happy Birthday and congrats on 102...Have you hit 2 million vertical yet?  Hey let me know when you can make it down to kayak the Kaydeross and hit the Brewery.  Unfortunately it looks like my season is over.  Painting, tiling, graduation party, knee injury, etc but with a little luck I can get that one more day to hit 50 for the season...I have never done it and this year was to be my only real chance.

K-Man, great TR.  It made me so jealous I think I have to stop reading HR until all the snow is gone.  BTW, I saw the area you were talking about in Greenfield.  Short but nice pitch...don't you think installing a tow will upset the local earn your turns crew   If you guys need someone to help create a bump run down one of the sides just let me know.

I always hike the Tannery work road because it is much easier than hiking on the trails.  Its normally a nice hard packed gravel road and only about 45 minutes to the base of the Straight Brook lift.  I've been thinking of accessing it with my mountain bike, but with the wash outs, that is out of the question for now.  
I've heard of people accessing the dark side from Barton, but I've never attempted it.  I'm not sure if the time saved on the hike would be more than the extra drive time for me.
We've got some photo's, but need time to site down with the camera and computer at home.  

Access from the private Barton property won't save you significant time. There is a gate on the road that may be closed so if you get that far, you'd need to turn around. Even if it's open on the way in, it may be closed by the time one is ready to leave. There are year round residences and people around. The property is massive and it's easy to get lost. There are no signs such as "poach Gore this way"!

adkskier wrote

Access from the private Barton property won't save you significant time. There is a gate on the road that may be closed so if you get that far, you'd need to turn around. Even if it's open on the way in, it may be closed by the time one is ready to leave. There are year round residences and people around. The property is massive and it's easy to get lost. There are no signs such as "poach Gore this way"!

Truth. Finding your way there wouldn't be too hard, but the gate screwed us last year.

I lived in one of the residences on Barton's Gore property from '89 - '92, while working for Barton as their Accounting Manager.  During those years we'd drive up either one of the two roads on Denis's map and ski Hulaballoo or Lower Darby after Gore closed for the season.  There was no Rumor or Lies then.  Lower Steilhang typically melted out earlier (may not have had snowmaking then).  The yellow road required 4WD (I had a Jeep Gr Cherokee) but an ordinary car could drive up road on the other side of the pit.  Access was quick enough and daylight lasted long enough that I could work till 5pm and easily have enough time to get in a couple runs.  Both routes on the map were part of the cross country trail system that Barton operated on the property during that era, known as Highwinds, so they were relatively well maintained.  The yellow road was known as the Garnet Trail, and the road on the other side of the pit was known as Main Street and leads up to the top of Pete Gay Mountain where there is a very cool log cabin with a great view of Gore.  Those were some fun years.  

In any case, as has been pointed out already, the road is gated and the property is posted, so it's not feasible as a hike-to-ski approach.

Thanks for the report Kman, hope to see some pics.

Ok, finally got a chance to post some photo's.
Starting out.

Tannery work road

Washout on Tannery work road

Booting up

Skinning up Headwaters from the base of Straightbrook chair

Rumor looking mighty fine

Lunch at the headwall


Ellen and Duck T.R. down on headwaters

Chuck eating corn on Rumor

Me on Rumor

We run into Duck T.R. on Rumor

Top O' Lies

Preparing to unload from the High Peaks double

View from the top of Lies

Eating corn

A little grass skiing on the way out Tannery

Hehehe.

K man wrote

Preparing to unload from the High Peaks double

Woo Hoo! Nice legs......working on her farmer tan

K man wrote

Those are some great photos Kman.  Incredible coverage on Rumor & Lies.  Looks like it should still be good this weekend.