I’d made tentative plans to meet up with Andy at Lost Trail for some
boarding, but chores kept me around the house for the morning.  I was
finally able to make it up to the hill around 12:30 P.M., and I hoped Andy
was still around on the hill.  I put out a call on the radio and got an
immediate response:  Andy was over on the Bunny Hill waiting until 12:45 to
purchase an afternoon ticket.  He’d gotten off to a late start, so my timing
actually worked out perfectly.

All morning I’d been thinking about getting over to cruise the Saddle
Mountain trees on my board, and Andy was thinking similar (although perhaps
not quite as tree-related) thoughts.  Just as the mountain had done on
Friday, they were only running Chair 2 to service the main slopes, so first
we had to ski down from the base lodge (7,000’) to the bottom of Chair 2
(6,600’) to catch a ride.  After my annual ritual of figuring out exactly
how to strap on my board, we were on our way down Drifter.  The temperature
at this elevation was probably around 40 F, so the snow had already begun to
get mushy.  My boarding skills came back right away and I was able to carve
through the soft stuff.  I even found much drier snow along the right edge
of the trail near the trees.  It brought back memories of many powder
boarding days at Stowe.  At the bottom of the run we had to pass through a
flat area and I didn’t quite have the momentum to make it through.  I have
to remember to give my board a little wax sometime (or maybe even a tune) to
get it in shape.  Andy was just able to make it through without stopping, so
his board seemed to be gliding slightly better on the soft surfaces.

Aware of the softening conditions, I was diligent about keeping my speed up
on the flat areas of North Bowl and Candy Stick as we made our way to Chair
4.  I was able to make the entire trip to the top of Side Street without
coming to a stop, so I was feeling better about my board surface.  Side
Street had a lot of tracks in the middle, but I found plenty of untouched
powder to the right.  The snow there was partially sheltered from the sun,
so there were areas of light powder intermixed with some mushy spots.  On
the board though, it was easy to plow through the various conditions and I
was soon having so much fun that “woo!” came out of my mouth a couple of
times.

Once off Chair 4, we headed over through the trees to Lewis and Clark, which
had a lot of untracked snow near the top.  We then diverged to Odyssey,
which hadn’t been groomed and was about half tracked up.  As we dropped in
elevation, the snow became heavier and a bit tougher to ride.  But, by the
time we reached Two Dot we were back on groomed terrain.  The groomed stuff
was a little sticky but manageable.  For the next run, I got to unload at
the Chair 4 mid-station for the first time.  We headed through the trees for
a while, which I found to be in really good shape with plenty of untracked,
relatively light powder.  Then, we bypassed the Odyssey option and rode the
lower groomed parts of Lewis and Clark.  The snow was a lot less sticky that
what we’d seen on Two Dot, possibly due to the simple fact that the sun went
behind some clouds for a while.  That seemed to allow the snow to tighten up
enough to make a noticeable difference in glide.

Andy then decided to call it a day, and I took a couple of runs on Chair 5
to finish up.  I got a couple of nice untracked lines down Lynx and then
rode right out to the car.  The clouds had begun to thicken on my drive
home, and by the time I got to Hamilton the peaks to the south had started
to disappear.  The weather service is talking about the possibility of a few
inches tonight and then maybe a bit more tomorrow.  The only concern will be
the warm temperatures, so hopefully Lost Trail won’t get any rain.

A few pictures from the day can be seen at:

http://www.jandeproductions.com/2005/19MAR05.html

J.Spin

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