Wensday February 1 REPORT

gpetrics · Post by **gpetrics** » Feb 1st, '07, 13:37

No classes this morning, so got out to the base of the skyeship at 845, scraped the Seths, and rode up. Ripped down a skyeburst with about 3-4 inches of fluff ontop of groomed hardpack. There were about 4 other sets of tracks ahead of me, but the first people on the SPQ had not yet gotten to the top, so i believe i was the first public down the trail! Lots of fun going fast through pow.

Went to OL... again first tracks through about 4-6 inches of pow on the skier's left side of the trail... not to say that that much snow had fallen, but the fresh couldn't stick to the top of the whales on OL and had all blown into the nook near the ropes on the skiers left. was forced over into the guns when i got to the mogul-competition area, but it was suprisingly fun to ski through the mix of man made and new natural.

SPQ-> superstar... awesome. had to do this twice. Had ALOT of fun hopping over the whales and getting to dig in on both sides. lower part was alot of fun too.

K1 -> dipper... first run on this guy this season. the groomers must have hit this late, so no new snow on it... but again fun to really lay into some carves down it. K1-> Rime, North Ridge -> Rime+East Fall... both very nice. There was again that 3-4 inches of fluff on groomed hardpack... really easy to feel like a hero and go a bit too fast making big carves.
did K1 -> rime+East Fall once more, and then headed over to the superstar quad to get back to my car and go to classes... came down the headwall of superstar (awesome buttery manmade) and cut over to take cruise control to GE... but needles eye looked too awesome, so i took that down to the bottom of Skyeship stage 2. Met up with some friends who I hadn't seen in a few weeks at the top of skyeburst, and we held a great eastern downhill to Rt.4. Got to class, and now writing this up.

All in all, an awesome day. Not too cold (not that that really bothers me :- ), and the bit of fresh snow over top of the groomed stuff was somethign to behold. SHould mix in nicely (especially if we get more tommorrow afternoon!) with what is underneath and make for some great skiing this weekend...likely the best of the season so far.

One last thing K needs to do to erase the disaster month of December is get one (or more) of Fiddle, Conclusion, or Ovation open... then this season will be complete. OL is nice but it just seems alot tamer than these trails... doesn't seem to fall away from under your feet quite the same way Fiddle, Ovation and Conclusion do.

I'll be at pico tommorrow afternoon to see what's going on there...

Vinny Vincenzo · Post by **Vinny Vincenzo** » Feb 1st, '07, 13:40

Sweet!

johnny the jibber · Post by **johnny the jibber** » Feb 1st, '07, 13:45

yeah, today was sweet. hit somewhere and nowhere for some woods freshies. skye/bitter route was good, skyeburst to viper was GREAT. everything was awesome. should be a good weekend for ya'll. come get some...

millerm277 · Post by **millerm277** » Feb 1st, '07, 13:59

Conclusion is, or at least was open.

Keithus · Post by **Keithus** » Feb 1st, '07, 14:02

I had a great lesson this A.M. with Ed, a recently retired surgeon who's been instructing since the late 50's.
He's gotta be almost 70, but he didn't ski or teach like an old man!

My pass came with two free 2-hour group lessons.
A midweek Pico group lesson usually = a private or semi-private lesson, so that's what I had.

We did a bit of carving practice, and spent a bunch of the time in the Birch Glades.
Ed rocks in there and helped me get better.
He also left me with some exercises to play with.

It was a beautiful morning at Pico.
Perfect temps, perfect snow.
The Glades were full of freshies with just a few sticks poking through.

Every single groomer was immaculate as I did my post-lesson mountain tour.
Upper KA was particularly enjoyable and Ed's teaching came in very useful on ungrooomed and bumping up Upper Sunset '71.
I met some of the Castleton College Ski Team while hiking over to B-Slope from the Summit chair.
Like most in Vermont they seemed like nice kids.

Pico finally got all of Expressway open and looked like they were setting up to get Upper Pike going.

tyrolean_skier · Post by **tyrolean_skier** » Feb 1st, '07, 14:03

Thanks guys for the reports. Looking forward to skiing some trees this weekend. MtnMan are you ready to lead?

NECskibum · Post by **NECskibum** » Feb 1st, '07, 14:11

Dipper was actually early but wind blown hard pack b4 and after it was winched, downdraft was nice until the pitch then a little scraped but very skiable.

MrsG · Post by **MrsG** » Feb 1st, '07, 14:35

Have to agree, today was great . . . some of the best powder was found on Bear . . . and on the way to Bear . . . OL not as good as yesterday, nor was Wildfire . . . but Upper Wildfire must have had at least 6 inches of snow - blown over or not - it was deep. Loved the powder over the groomed terrain parks on down through lower Bear Claw - I'm telling you, those parks are my private stash:))) Powday will probably report later, but he mentioned Skyhawk and upper Conclusion were great. Again, everything at Needles good, even upper Bitter was still a bit scratchy but better than yesterday. Bunny/Highline were good - the groomers left some areas on each trail with untouch powder and groomed other areas . . . but, there were some strange areas - lower OL, Mouse Trap, sections of Superstar that seemed like thick crust . . .weird.

K - doing a great job . . . but, I'll have some overheard observations from your customer base regarding the gondola on Ask Killington

ace · Post by **ace** » Feb 1st, '07, 15:05

They will blow the Fiddle no doubt, but the real saving grace from last year was them blowing Vertigo top to bottom & Dreamy top.

whiteout · Post by **whiteout** » Feb 1st, '07, 16:29

cool reports, thanks

Finn · Post by **Finn** » Feb 1st, '07, 17:13

It's Thursday dude!!

sos Skier · Post by **sos Skier** » Feb 1st, '07, 18:35

GP if you did not take out the seths what did you ride. I have found the seths more of an everyday ski with decent snow. Easy to turn pretty quick edeg to edge and they lay down some arcs...yada yada yada yada yada

GLAD YOU HAD A FUN DAY

gpetrics · Post by **gpetrics** » Feb 1st, '07, 18:58

sos Skier wrote:GP if you did not take out the seths what did you ride. I have found the seths more of an everyday ski with decent snow. Easy to turn pretty quick edeg to edge and they lay down some arcs...yada yada yada yada yada

GLAD YOU HAD A FUN DAY

heh... whoops... "scraped the seths" meant scraped the wax off and USED them :- )

sorry. i repeat: awesome day... having a hard time working right now while thinking about how much fun skyeburst was first thing this morning.

sos Skier · Post by **sos Skier** » Feb 1st, '07, 19:13

SCCCCHHHHWWWWWEEEEET!

JUST A FUN A-S SKI EH?

where do you have them mounted? Mine are a +3

gpetrics · Post by **gpetrics** » Feb 1st, '07, 19:32

sos Skier wrote:SCCCCHHHHWWWWWEEEEET!

JUST A FUN A-S SKI EH?

where do you have them mounted? Mine are a +3

they are indeed AWESOME... i have never had so much fun on a fat ski all over the mountain.

mine are mounted +2... i don't think i'd like to go any further forward (in fact i might even go back a half centimeter if i get another pair--which is likely :- ) because i tend to really lay them out for a carve sometimes on medium angle trails like east fall and skyeburst, and i find that they occasionally stall in these high stakes situations... i sort of feel the entire tip of the ski flip up off the snow, and then BAM that turn just stopped being a carve, and started being a life-saving manuever... i feel like if i had just a bit more beef in front of me that could be avoided.

that said... the skis are awesome. they remind me of skiing downhill skis from my racing days, but with more life on edge and at lower speeds...

my only suggestion to K2 is that I wish they came EVEN BIGGER!

how big are yours? I'm rolling the 189 (although a tape measure came out to 194 on mine)