THE Beech Mountain: 1-17-13

[theKENDOG]

So this afternoon was a very interesting one for me. I left the offices in Foscoe around 5pm. It had been snowing for a while down there but it wasn't terribly bad at that point...maybe a couple inches on the ground and the roads were fine for the most part. I hadn't had a chance to look at the cams in a few hours as I was dealing with some other stuff, so I have no clue how quickly things had changed up in Banner Elk/Tynecastle. Here's a pic of the roads in Foscoe. Not bad at all.







As soon as I started to go up the mountain on 105 towards Tynecastle the road conditions quickly changed. 105 was covered in a layer of wet snow and cars were having trouble getting up the mountain, causing me to have to slow down and lose my momentum. I thought I was going to get stuck. Somehow, my beast of an Acura made it up and I didn't have to ditch it. I was spinning tires the whole time basically.











So I made it to my house after seeing several cars stuck on 184 in front of Sugar. I had to park at the bottom of the neighborhood and walk up. When I got to my place there was already a good 4 inches or so on the ground and it was dumping. An hour and a half later and I swear it had doubled. It was crazy how fast the snow was falling for a few hours there.







I decided a night session to Beech was in order and called Kevin and he was down to go as well. GrizzlyEnton, jamsandwich, and peanut butter picked me up around 7:15ish. As I'm walking/riding down the road in my neighborhood to go meet them at the bottom, the power goes out in my neighborhood. When I get down, the lights across the street at Sugar are out as well. Crap. Hopefully Beech has power. Luckily, I was able to log into the Beech slopeside cam from my phone and see that it had power and also that the lights were on on Upper Shawneehaw. Sweet!



After a quick detour to pick up Enton's board back in Foscoe (moonshine makes you forget things), we headed up to Beech. The parkway was pretty covered but Kevin's Subaru was a beast. We arrived around 8:20ish and were stoked to see how much snow was in the parking lot.











Got on the lift around 8:40ish and had a sweet hour and a half of riding. Shawneehaw had a ton of snow, but it had gotten fairly tracked and on the lower portion there was a freakin gap in the trail where water had been running through the snow. I'm talking a 2-3 foot wide gap that was 3 feet deep and it rain across the entire trail. Pretty sketch. As is usual after a dump, Lower Shawneehaw was too slow and I only rode it once. Next run I followed Grizz down Robbins and it was much better. Not blower pow, but creamy goodness. Fun stuff.



Jam was stoked.





Here's where things got fun. Lower Southern Star was closed but we decided to poach it. A combination of untouched natural and manmade snow made for a fun *** time. You'd hit bottom occasionally but it was deep in other spots. I hadn't ridden powder in two years so I was whooping and yelling and what not. I missed that floating feeling. We kept lapping it until the end of the night.



Grizz taking a trip to the white room.





Animated GIFs are cool







I decided to join him.





We had Southern to ourselves.





Grizz and Jam coming down.





All in all, it was a fun afternoon. I'm glad we were able to get out and hit the snow while it was still fresh. Hopefully Beech pushes the snow around and grooms things because conditions are variable to say the least right now. Should be a fun weekend though and I'm looking forward to getting back out there on Monday.

[jamsandwich]

those came out really well. what a fun night. def in my top 5 night sessions lifetime. get some this weekend, crowds or not its going to look real pretty.

[GrizzlyEnton]

Bootysweat

[skipanther]

Damn fine report son!

[mmmtaters]

BEECH!

[carvebeast]

this gets my jimmies rustled for utah. hate i missed it

[THA HATTER]

STOKED ON THIS

[PostQ]

Niiiiice.

[jt3]

Great trip report. looks like you guys had some fun. I would normally be jealous. but, well you know...UT

[RMacSki]

SE powder at its finest!