Was it the manmade? The time of day? Or something else? Where'd I go wrong?

I'd been watching the weather at the Metropolitan Mecca of Schnee (that
would be Vernon, N.J.). Four days at least of night temps in the 20s and
days in the 40s. Early yesterday afternoon I excused myself from the office
to tend to the corn harvest.

Main problem, I'm sure, was that I was too late. When I finally hit the
slopes, it was 49 degrees and 5PM. I was prepared for glop, but that's not
what was there. Instead, the trails were mostly soft icy patches where one
could sometimes turn with control and always skid with ease. Topped with
occasional thin layers of a fast, silky, and not especially wet, snow.

Here and there on the "mountain," there were stretches of the latter that
could almost be linked into a fun run. (Actually, for various equipment
reasons, it was a fun evening.) And watching an aging puffed up hotshot (no,
not me) do a slide for life down Mountain Crock's one truly steep trail,
travel feet-up-and-head-down straight into a snowmaking pipe, then dust
himself off mumbling something 'bout "can't believe it, but I'm fine, I
thought I was dead," well, maybe you had to be there, but it struck me as
funny. 

But no corn. And it didn't appear to me like there'd been corn earlier in
the day either.

Until 8:30. Which was when I happened on a line, left side of a trail I'd
already tried the right on, of something strangely corn-like. It wasn''t
coarse. It was smooth and silky like the stuff I'd seen all evening, but
somehow it had more body to it. And it skied a lot like corn. 200 verts of
bliss. 

I raced up and back to the same trail, begged "one last run" just as they
were roping it off (in new jersey, they don't actually use rope; looks more
like police tape), and got in 200 more.

By then it was 8:50. My legs were done and the lifts nearly so. It'd
actually been a good evening, but as corn harvests go... not so much.

Now that it's March, any wise words from the list for next time?

--tn

P.S. Mountain Crock looks like it's got about 2 weeks left in it.

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