PRE-SUMMIT SNOWSHOE MOUNTAIN REPORT

[SWOOP]

Timing is Everything...

I know I read in a recent article, I think it was one of David's a while back (love your writing dude!), where he said something like, if we have learned anything from the past two winters...make hay while you can, when mother nature is cooperating, punch out and chase some vertical! That is exactly what I did. I, of course like all you other snow geeks, check the weather daily (at least once!) and saw a "weather window" between two warm weeks.

I headed for Snowshoe on Sunday morning and skied all day and Monday am as well.

Saturday night saw temps plummet into the upper teens--yeah that is below freezing in case you can't remember what that is like...even a dusting of snow. But the best news is that the ole boys had the guns cranked up feverishly, and I mean on Cupp too! Sunday morning we were blessed with temps in low 20's and fresh man made fluff. Top of the day was Grabhammer, where the boys at Intrawest popped for a few more Low E guns and left some nice loose stuff. Cupp was equally as good and held the overnight cold very well until well into the afternoon.

Solitude at Silver Creek

Later that day, I made my way to Silver Creek to turn some laps off of the Flying Eagle lift. (this is the far lift away from the lodge and last runs to open at SC). Ok, I'll admit that SS had all but given up on Flying Eagle, BUT, there was TONS OF SNOW on Bear Claw and Bucksaw and they both skied beautifully. Needless to say, I virtually had the entire run to myself.

Mother Nature's Revenge

Monday am, with the warm up, the guns were off and things began to soften a bit. I was so pleased that Shay's and Lower Shay's were open! My first laps on Lower Shay's this year - well where have I been? No the run just opened 3 weeks ago. Right side of Shay's on Sunday was absolutely wonderful with pretty deep corned up stuff that made for some nice soft turns. That was Sunday. By Monday noon, the thin runway that was left to get to both Upper and Lower Shay's was wearing thin. I may have skied Shay's for the last time for the 2016-2017 season. There are no white whales around to save this run. While I'm hopeful it will be open for us at the SUMMIT, my experience says no more blowing on Shay's...all in on Cupp.

In general, the mountain has held up well considering some of the pics Mike and Kenny have recently posted - shirtless flips and the like. There were very few thin or brown spots and conditions were a 7 to 8 out of 10. Not too shabby given the slush puddles of just 3 days ago. As the Mike and Kenny have been reporting, still 55/57 runs as of this writing and pretty darn good base most places.

I know we have the warm-up again this week, but the cold is coming Thursday/Friday and should serve us up for Saturday morning much like my "weather window" trip above.

Timing is everything... and with that we will see you at the Snowshoe Summit!