Gore Conditions (2012-2013)

Cold and windy today.  The snow never really softened up.  Skiing often felt like you were running over rumble strips!  Some icy spots and bare patches are starting to show up in the higher trafficked areas.  Glades were closed, probably a routine thing during the week, but it's looking a bit thin in there, so without more snow, not sure how much more skiing there will be in the woods.  

Today at Gore was a gift from Uhler, the surprise snow that came down Friday night coated the hill with 5 to 8" of wonderful powder. If you were lucky to get fresh tracks they were fantastic. We kept on the move early, sampling trail after trail - staying ahead of the crowds, when we ran out of trails we moved to the glads, when we ran out of the marker glades, we ran out even further. Freshies were had all day, We ended the day with a party with great friends, food and drink. Now I think today deserves the adjectives "Excellent, awesome, stellar" , Some of the best skiing of the year. At the end of the day - a bon fire to celebrate the gift Uhler gave us.

Today was groomed packed powder, cold temps and dry snow. Didn't venture into the woods today. It was also the bump contest but with the rain and hard freeze the machine made bumps just didn't get formed nicely, so maybe it was the lump contest. The kids love it, and most of the first 70 people were all the race kids.

woods were hit or miss...Dark side had the best snow.  I rather liked Rumor today with Darby Woods the next best "trails".  I'm not much of a cruiser and today was definitely a cruiser's day

DackerDan wrote

I see you subscribe to Harv's rating system

I would have used those terms for Sat the 2nd where finding boot top untracked and light powder was rather easy even in the more frequently visited glades. There is little room for a winter powder day if you apply "excellent" and "stellar" to "packed powder".

Ha!  Fair enough.  I suppose my rating system is somewhat similar to Harv's.

DackerDan wrote

Now I think today deserves the adjectives "Excellent, awesome, stellar" , Some of the best skiing of the year.

Here's the thing:  Saturday (3/16) was certainly an excellent day on the mountain, but I think the previous Saturday (3/09) was even better!  As nice as the new snow was this weekend, it didn't completely eliminate the scratchy base underneath, at least on the steeper summit trails and glades.  Whereas on the 9th, conditions were consistently nice all day, on all terrain, regardless of whether corn on the lower mountain or packed powder in the summit trees.


I guess we've all got our own subjective ratings scale.  Vive la difference!


Here's my TR and pics from Saturday.

The winter storm advisory didn't go up until sometime after 8pm on Friday night.  I checked NOAA around 8 and they were calling for an inch or less.  I checked again at 11 at which time I let out a gasp or a WOW or something which caused my wife to think someone died.  She didn't have the same level of enthusiasm when I told her Saturday was gonna be a POW day:)

Interesting to hear that they blew on lies.  I wondered because the consistency of the snow and the yellowish color seemed manmade to me but I just couldn't believe they would have blown this late in the season.  I heard the hiss of air in the pipes and figured maybe they were purging or something.

Saturday we spent the morning on lower mountain and burnt ridge.  In the trees I kept feeling like I needed fatter skis too as I bottomed out some on the hard unknown below.  I got 5th or 6th tracks in chatterbox and barkeater.  I hit something hidden at the bottom of barkeater and had a single eject.  You could tell the trails that were groomed later as they were grippier and didn't have as much new snow on top.  The snow was really light blower so it didn't really bond to the hard pack on the trails that weren't groomed.  There was no wind at all on Saturday.  Season long mountain adventure had a cook out on top of rumor which was a lot of fun.  All the kids did the bump contest on Sunday too which was great to watch.  Sunday was great too.  No woods but the snow really blended in nicely on the groomed runs.  Definitely a cruisers day.  Small patches of ice here and there but easily avoidable.  Light crowds too.  All the Hinterlandians went home after Saturday.  Topridge still had fresh cord at 10:30.

Word I heard from an unnamed source is they are hoping for daily ops till April 7th then probably close that week and re-open the following weekend.  After that who knows.

Today was F'n awesome.  "I was there"

Me Too...

<quote author="Adk Jeff">
<quote author="DackerDan">

Ha!  Fair enough.  I suppose my rating system is somewhat similar to Harv's.

DackerDan wrote

Here's the thing:  Saturday (3/16) was certainly an excellent day on the mountain, but I think the previous Saturday (3/09) was even better!  As nice as the new snow was this weekend, it didn't completely eliminate the scratchy base underneath, at least on the steeper summit trails and glades.  Whereas on the 9th, conditions were consistently nice all day, on all terrain, regardless of whether corn on the lower mountain or packed powder in the summit trees.


I guess we've all got our own subjective ratings scale.  Vive la difference!


Here's my TR and pics from Saturday.

Nice pics in the blog. My daughter thought the base less than ideal. I was riding my race tigers which were very well tuned so the base did not bother me, when in the woods I was light on the edges and went with the flow of the powder, but I did add a few battle scars. My enthusiasm was for the day in it's entirety and the unexpected snow. I was not expecting to find boot top pow when I left Friday night. I agree that conditions could have been better, but I did not look a gift horse in the mouth as they say. Ratings are indeed subjective, it's all good.

tuesday was OMFG. best day of the year. glades were spectacular.

I second that...Tuesday was the best day of the year.

15 inches fresh, who was that guy who called for rain ;)

NorEaster27 wrote

15 inches fresh, who was that guy who called for rain ;)

Haha. I think it was the world's most pessimistic weather guy. I mean, it doesn't have to always be sunshine and rainbows, but at least give a glimmer of hope once in a while. The "sorry, it's all rain" posts 1 week out are just downers. I've had a pretty good season of ignoring him so far, though... From West Virginia in October, right up until now. I'll be back on Friday and up this weekend ready to ski some Late March Trees...

Work "emergency". Cannot go today.

Hope all you slackers at the mountain are having a great time. See some of you tomorrow.

best two days of the year for me,,funny thing is i dont know how the trails were,im assuming pretty good,lol..ski bowl fri,sat and sunday =more fresh

Wish I could have been there today...K Man, interesting place to see you yesterday  If I can get away for a couple of hours Friday morning I would love to hit the Bowl...are we sure Hudson will be running?

really great day ,snow was superb ,woods skied wonderful,ski friends phenomenal

outlaw 1 wrote

funny thing is i dont know how the trails were,im assuming pretty good,lol.

fixedheeln said hullaballu was best she has ever skied it ,only  "trail" report

unless it all melts tomorrow hudson chair will run friday,,but nothing is 100%.just relaying what i heard from the janitor

Tuesday was epic. They had a lot of things closed, perhaps to save it for the weekend . . . so on principle, I poached.

Just about everything was in perfect shape. The weekend should be awesome.

Woods were great today.  Quicksilver was bumped up by 3pm, fun run to really hit hard.  Chatterbox has some great cover.  Tomorrow should be fantastic, grooming report is that they are leaving just enough bumped up to be fun but enough knocked down to not destroy your legs by lunch.