Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2014 10:58 am
So I think this was my 9th day at the Shoe. Usual day trip with a 930 start in the WT. Early temps were lower 20s and partly cloudy but sunny afternoon and warming to 40ish. Overall the snow quality was awesome.
Top of Widomaker as I clicked in and headed to WT. I wasn't expecting much more than groomers.
The long ride up Powdermonkey
The WT was nothing special...Cupp had good snow top-to-bottom all groomed. Shays has been left ungroomed since the 8" snow 2 days prior. While there were a few patches of soft snow, Shay's was mostly world cup ice. Glades had nothing.
Upper Shays
Lower Shays
I got bored after a few laps on Cupp and was beginning to think this might be a wasted day. I decided to head back to basin area to explore some haunts.
Knotbumper was knotty with good soft snow.
While on KB I heard some peeps in the glades so I ducked in there the second time around....YIKES!!
way too thin. Didn't want to destroy my bases, or my body, so I decided to unclip and walk the steep. Lower section held enough coverage.
Realizing the lower trees may be good, I started to sniff around. Under Ballhooter was good.
But the real money was under Grabhammer. I dropped in at about middle, from Grabhammer trail. Snow was perfect, lots of untracked pow to my amazement.
I was tempted to huck this, but being solo and on a closed trail....decided to ski around.
A few laps on that then headed to Soaring Eagle area. Snow under the lift looked great, but it was inconsistent under the cover...lots of ice moguls, lose ice chunks and thin spots, etc. Still was good, just had to stay on your toes.
Camp99 was good also
The lift lines were getting ridiculous. Hey, get off my mountain!
So goes #9
Top of Widomaker as I clicked in and headed to WT. I wasn't expecting much more than groomers.
The long ride up Powdermonkey
The WT was nothing special...Cupp had good snow top-to-bottom all groomed. Shays has been left ungroomed since the 8" snow 2 days prior. While there were a few patches of soft snow, Shay's was mostly world cup ice. Glades had nothing.
Upper Shays
Lower Shays
I got bored after a few laps on Cupp and was beginning to think this might be a wasted day. I decided to head back to basin area to explore some haunts.
Knotbumper was knotty with good soft snow.
While on KB I heard some peeps in the glades so I ducked in there the second time around....YIKES!!
way too thin. Didn't want to destroy my bases, or my body, so I decided to unclip and walk the steep. Lower section held enough coverage.
Realizing the lower trees may be good, I started to sniff around. Under Ballhooter was good.
But the real money was under Grabhammer. I dropped in at about middle, from Grabhammer trail. Snow was perfect, lots of untracked pow to my amazement.
I was tempted to huck this, but being solo and on a closed trail....decided to ski around.
A few laps on that then headed to Soaring Eagle area. Snow under the lift looked great, but it was inconsistent under the cover...lots of ice moguls, lose ice chunks and thin spots, etc. Still was good, just had to stay on your toes.
Camp99 was good also
The lift lines were getting ridiculous. Hey, get off my mountain!
So goes #9