Gore Conditions (2016 - 2017)

snoloco wrote

Sharpen your edges and toughen up .  .

Oh, my edges are sharp enough.  The skittish conditions certainly kept me on my toes.  Like I said, once the snow (or what remained of it on top of the ice) softened up a little, it was good skiing for a while.  It was not so fun when my daughter wiped out on a giant patch of pure ice in the middle of Headwaters.

Contrary to YK's experience, I did not find the mountain overly crowded today.  However, we did not ski Sunway or thereabouts.  But even Twister and Showcase were uncrowded the couple of times we came back down to the main lodge.  One nice thing about their decision to maximize terrain.

I do think the staff had its hands full this weekend with injured skiers.  I heard there was a broken arm yesterday, and this morning I saw they had a kid immobile, waiting for a sled, at the bottom of the Dark Side.  Then when we were leaving around 1:30 an ambulance came screaming up the mountain road.

Petronio

MikePom wrote

Word from the lifties was that they Hudson Chair could be spinning next weekend!

I doubt it.  Once Pine Knot and Chatiemac are finished, I think they're going to blow Sagamore and resurface some other trails.  There's nowhere near enough snow on Pipeline to open it and there's no snowmaking on the first portion of it.  Might be a possibility of it opening in 2-3 weeks.

Petronio wrote

Contrary to YK's experience, I did not find the mountain overly crowded today

Petronio

Sometimes you just "hit the mountain wrong". We ended up caught in crowds, but that's part of skiing on a holiday weekend. The ice just exacerbated the situation.

Props to instructors who take out groups of kids. That's not an easy job.

Blacks skied better than blues today. Top Ridge was great with lots of snow and bumps. Wild Air and Hawkeye were good. Uncas was skiable. Headwaters and Showcase were scratchy. Twister was just OK. Echo closed below Twister's Little Sister for racing. Pine Knot was not open. Not crowded at all for a holiday.

Big bumps on Chattahoochee via txt from Shaman

Meant to post last night, didn't get a chance.

Gore was excellent on Thursday. I was a little worried headed up when the snow report listed loose and frozen granular but either that was in reference to trails I didn't ski or just an ill-informed report. I actually don't know if it's possible to have better conditions for groomers than we had yesterday. The snow was soft and you could set an edge any way you wanted without wondering if you'd hit a firm spot.  Topridge/Uncas were soft and peel away early (and most of the day, for that matter), and Hawkeye was the same. Chatiemac had whales, soft bumps, peel away corn and only a few thin-ish spots down low. The lower mountain got the slightest bit slushy in the afternoon when it was like almost 40' out, but it was still skiing awesome.  

Had a great time ripping around with my dad and even took some time to goof around practicing skiing switch on Tannery while heading back to the Topridge chair. Probably the most fun I've had skiing Tannery actually. Only "bad" trail I skied was Lies actually, and it wasn't even bad, just not as good as everything else.  I think they may have been a little over-zealous in the grooming..I remembering it having a lot more character in years past. Oh well.. everything else was fun.  

Nice!

Guns on Rumor.

Absolutely great conditions today. Everything skied well and held up for the whole day. I liked the groomers better than the ungroomed. Mostly overcast all day so it felt a bit colder than the thermometer said. A few scratchy spots surfaced late afternoon, but not many. If I had to pick one trail, I think top ridge would be it for today. I suggest an early arrival tomorrow with the weekend crowds.

Echo is closed through Monday for racing.

Guns on Rumor turned off early afternoon-probably too warm.

tom

TomCat wrote

Echo is closed through Monday for racing.

So basically the BR lift is useless except as a way to avoid the AE2 or Gondola.

Not sure why they wouldn't have moved this event to Whiteface as holding the race there would be much less disruptive.  Plus the bed base in LP can host a large event much better.

Did you really say that?

Yes I did.

I'm not skiing either mountain this weekend as I'm going to Smugglers Notch, but I would say the same thing if I was skiing Whiteface.

Harvey wrote

Did you really say that?

Yes, that 's how spoiled brats act when they don't get what they want. When I saw the race on the schedule, I laughed as I knew it would piss him off

Shaman,

I chatted up several of the Racers/Coachs today; how was the course?, where you guys ski outta?, yada, yada.  They all loved the place and were happy to be here.

I watched several racers from Twister's Sister vantage looking up Echo on that medium pitch, maybe 50MPH, ...gulp. The fastest teenage kids in the Eastern US and Canada ripping like they know they will be World Cuppers.  Yikes!!!

Glad to have'm here and spend more than time!

YEAH BUDDY

Racers love Echo - they think it's one of the best GS runs in the east, at least the ones I have talked to.

I was up there today also. As stated conditions were excellent, I thought the high peaks runs were especially good but everything skied well. Interesting visibility, cloudy at the bottom, foggy from the top of Wild Air to the the top of Bear mountain and in and out sun near the summit.

I personally liked the racers on Echo,  it is like they have there own mountain, only saw them in the lodge and from the AEII.  

64ER wrote

Shaman,

I chatted up several of the Racers/Coachs today; how was the course?, where you guys ski outta?, yada, yada.  They all loved the place and were happy to be here.

I watched several racers from Twister's Sister vantage looking up Echo on that medium pitch, maybe 50MPH, ...gulp. The fastest teenage kids in the Eastern US and Canada ripping like they know they will be World Cuppers.  Yikes!!!

Glad to have'm here and spend more than time!

Oh yes, we all know you love to chat, and yes it is great to have them here enjoying the hill

Late March spring conditions in January! I don't know if it was better than yesterday, but it was great today. Conditions held up all day. Crowds were pretty light for a Saturday. Bumps on Chatti softened up nicely and it had to be the pick of the day but again everything skied well.

Dark side chair was acting up a few times today. we ended up bailing and taking wood out after. 5-6 failed attempts to get it going. I did see it running later in the day, so hopefully it's nothing serious.

tom

If you bought a day ticket today, you got your money's worth.  Great conditions all over, mild temps.  Only thing missing was glades and Burnt Ridge.

Morning Runs:
--Showcase:  at 8:45 there was perfect cord all the way down.  Sweet, irresistible stuff.
--Tahawus:  More cord.
--Wood In:  Could use some snow, but generally fine.
--Open Pit:  Nice cover, soft snow.
--Mica:  Good cover, always a fun little side trail for the girls.
--Headwaters:  could use some more snow at the choke point before The Glen.
--Tannery:  good cover.
--Topridge:  Best trail of the day, we skied it 4 or 5 times today.
--Uncas:  good cover, nice soft snow.  A thousand times better than last week.
--Hawkeye:  chopped up, starting to bump up, however nice and soft.

Afternoon Runs:
--Lies:  Soft and very skiable.  Me and 2 other guys were skiing it all by ourselves at 1:30.  We stood at the bottom looking up at an nonsensically empty trail.
--Cloud:  They need some snow on the flat between the Straightbrook shed and the start of Cloud.  Cloud needs snow at the elbow after Open Pit.
--Hullabaloo:  Scraped down, but the temps helped.  A new black diamond for the girls.  Challenging and fun.
--Lower Darby:  Great.  Good cover, lots of fun.  Another new black diamond for the girls.
--Wood Lots:  Good cover all around.
--Headwaters, Tannery the same.  Uncas remained a pleasure to ski.
--Topridge:  Great snow held up all day.  ALL DAY.
--Ruby Run:  Fine.  They need some snow at the top of the Gondola,
--Sleeping Bear:  Generally good cover, could use some snow about halfway down the trail.
--Tahawus:  Cord was gone, replaced by soft creamy goodness.  However about halfway down the spot where they had groomed dirt into the cord was getting messy with the warming temps.
--Twister:  Good cover on most of the trail, some thin spots, however it like everything else today skied great.
--Showcase:  Our last run down at 3:45.  Still skiing well at the end of the day.

Did not ski Chatty, someone told me it was nice and bumped up.  Did not ski Sunway or environs.

Petronio

Agree on all counts, if you missed Gore today, you missed a great day on the mountain.  Everything was skiing just the way I like it.  I shotgunned Lies and had no problem holding an edge, same on Lower Darby.  And thanks to the High Peaks chair going off line we decided to bail out an stole a run down Wood Out.

Chatiemac was wonderful.



We ended the day on Twister, carrying nice speed and catching some tuck air.

On the way down mountain the clouds started to break and were picking up beautiful color, may the sun come out tomorrow!