Marnie, Scott, and I were able to get St. Patrick's Day off work and head up to Waterville Valley to take advantage of their $17 lift tickets. The good news is that it was a beautiful, sunny, chilly, mid-winter day with great snow conditions. The bad news is that this was in the latter part of dog-blessed March, a few days before the Spring equinox! Will this winter never end?? Even the Mad River surrounding Waterville Valley was still choked with huge blocks of ice and gave us the impression it was early February. It was 10 degrees at the top of the White Peaks chair with a 10-20 MPH wind forecast, though it may not have been that windy.
Oh well, we were dressed for it and had a great time. The snow on the more North-facing trails, particularly Utter Abandon, Tippecanoe, and And Tyler Too was magically good. Strange that the "sunnyside" trails, which are usually the best part of Waterville, were not as good. There were lots of areas of very hard pack (approaching ice) around the mountain, though there were more than enough trails that were in beyond top-notch shape. Even the "high country" was 100% open, and I was able to ski on parts of it I'd never been on before.
Strange again that the Sunnyside lift was not open and, surprisingly, neither was Lower Ricky Bobby's Run, which seemed in fine shape from a distance. Oh well, that would have made the day too good I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment