Greek Peak - Mon. Night 3/12/12 & Sun.

Skied Greek, Mon. Night from 4 pm till 8:30pm straight thru. Base was just starting to firm up at 4 because it was cloudy and no sun pounding down. Each run got faster with less drag. By 6:30 skiing was quite good. By 7:30 base was firmed up really well. At 7:50 there was still a little grippey drag here and there in those big piles of snow. At 8:00 pm it was raining lightly and the machine made base instanly transformed into loose granular corn snow... both sides of Odyssey and Illiad could be skied fast and aggressive because you could virtually do no wrong in the loose granular.

Unfortunately, only 5 or 6 people were skiing. Greek was going to be open nights all week, but that now appears to be off.

There is snow up on top and down in the base area and Odyssey and Illiad have decent base 3/4's of the way down. The lower portions are melting out and may develope big bare spots. If it remains too warm to groom and push some snow around at night... who knows Greek may not make it into the weekend.

I am posting a few pics from Sun. 3/11/12. Skiing Sun was totally awesome

Some pics from Sun. 3/11/12:
Alchemene:

Trojan:

Chair 5, Mars Hill:

Tailgate parties off Chair 5:



Illiad:

Oddyssey:

That looks like a hell of a lot of fun to me.

  Looks like Sunday was a perfect day for a chair 5 party. I had a great day at Elk despite taking a spill after hitting an icy spot on Lackawanna. I think I'm still going to try to hit Platty on Saturday. I'm curious to see if they make it to their season passholder weekend, If they do, we'll be there Big D. Lean snow year + extended warm spells = short Spring season, I'm afraid. If I'm skiing on Memorial Day Weekend this year...it'll be behind a boat. Nice pics, Odyssey looks very inviting in that last one.

I would have crashed the tailgate..looks like fun!

Maybe I'm starting to get the Chair 5 thing....

Some good out of the way black terrain and trees, served by a lift that's right next to a parking lot so the tailgatin is easy?

Harv: Chair 5 area is called Greek Peak East. Usually get good lake effects powder over on that side of the mountain. Longest trail at Greek which is a blue and wraps way out and around down to the farside of Chair 5 (a triple chair) is named Arcadian Gate. The 1 trail with snowmaking running down skiers left of Chair 5 is a blue intermediate trail named Mars Hill. The tree glade section over there is designated a black section and is named Alsos Glade. Skiers right down Chair 5 is called  Arethusa way with a very steep black pitch at the bottom.

Chair 5 does have a parking lot and road over there. Usually lots of tailgate parties on weekends.
Campgottgopee posted this thread about his Chair 5 super bowl party with pics:
http://forum.nyskiblog.com/Chair-5-at-Greek-Peak-td3719577.html
A couple pics from last year:

I was going to go up there today after work. Monday's snow phone message said "Last week of night skiing". So I threw my gear in the car before heading to work today.

I asked Snowmonkey if she was skiing. She said GP closes at 5 today. I was like WTF? So I called the snow phone and sure 'nuf. I was so bummed. It was so nice today and the coverage still looked good on the web cam.

So I let management know that a bunch of us were planning to go out there today and we were bummed out that it was shutting down so early after they had said "last week of night skiing". I got this reply:

Sharon: I apologize for the confusion. I guess it is my wishful thinking that we would get enough business to keep night skiing going. Thank you for being part of the Greek Peak family.
 
Wes Kryger
Sr. Vice President and General Manager

No one was going to be buying lift tix, and I bet that few, if any, had been sold at all during the weekdays in the last couple of weeks anyway. Only the passholders are skiing now. That's just the way it is.

Harvey44 wrote

Maybe I'm starting to get the Chair 5 thing....

Some good out of the way black terrain and trees, served by a lift that's right next to a parking lot so the tailgatin is easy?

It's nice just parking over there if you have a season's pass. You can avoid the usual weekend circus at the main base area. In a normal season, you can ski between the East and the main area, and vice versa. This season there were times you could only access the East from the main area via shuttle bus, or "bending" the meaning of "closed" .There are two caveats, the chair opens an hour after the chairs at the main hill,  so no first tracks other than trails serviced by Chair 5. Since nothing is lit, you must end your day at 4:30, or drive to the main area to continue skiing. They do extend the hours as daylight increases, however. Perfect tailgate spot.

Cornhead wrote

. Since nothing is lit, you must end your day at 4:30, or drive to the main area to continue skiing. They do extend the hours as daylight increases, however. Perfect tailgate spot.

Didn't extend the hours this year.

Nice job Big D!!!! We were partying with Camo John at the bottom of chair 1 next to pine trees for his bday!!!! He threw himself one heluva party....WF here we come.

What? No Pond skimming?