Superstar in pristine condition

Superstar in pristine condition

After skiing with some interesting weather for a couple of days last week, todays adventure on the mountain was fairly calm. Given the fact that the mountain faced an array of sleet, snow, and freezing r@*n since my last visit, the mountain was in great shape.

It is not often that the run of the day is the very first one. But today, you would have to call Superstar at 9:00AM the run of the day. Perfectly groomed, slightly firm packed powder conditions supported sweeping GS style turns from the top of the headwall all the way down to the lift corral at the bottom. If you can't have 2 feet of fresh powder, this was a pretty good alternative. We looped it a couple of times before boosting off the back towards Bear Mountain.

At Bear, we found pretty much the opposite of Superstar. Bear Claw and Bear Trap were not groomed. They were soft and interesting to ski on, but you needed to pay attention to your turns. Upper Wildfire was passable. Very solid with a few small bumps. Lower Wildfire was dreadful. Extremely hard icy patches interspersed with loose, ball bearing sized granular. Just awful, but the group skis enough so everyone survived.

From the Skye Peak Quad, Upper Skye Burst was in nice shape. Lower Dream Maker was fun as usual. Cruise Control was probably not groomed, but but by the time we got there the surface had been softened up by other traffic. Panic Button, Needles Eye, Skye Lark, High Road were all worthy do overs. Upper Bittersweet was not groomed and looked a lot like Wildfire so we avoided it, but Lower Bittersweet was in pretty good shape.

Off the K1 gondola, Cascade, East Falls and Highline were all in nice shape, as were the trails off the North Ridge Triple. There was an interesting drop off at the K1 Gondola maze. A snow making artifact about 2 feet high greeted people entering the maze about 5 feet from it's entrance. Ski it if you can I guess.

It looks like some weather will again be moving into the area. Pick your precipitation type and you will find it in the forecast. Temperatures look like they are forecasted to be at or below freezing in the Rutland area, so maybe the mountain will see most of the precipitation in a frozen state. We can hope.

Let it snow!