Mary skiing across top of Superstar on her way to Skye Lark under a beautiful bright blue sky.

Mary skiing across top of Superstar on her way to Skye Lark under a beautiful bright blue sky.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. And while the official color of the day is definitely green, the bright blue of todays sky is a strong challenger.

Mary and I headed to the mountain a little later this morning. Weather conditions over the weekend promoted some surface melting. Temperatures in the area dipped into the teens last night. We felt going out a little later would give the sunshine some time to work it's magic... and it did! While surface conditions around the mountain were generally firm, the warm temperatures made them just pliable enough for a late morning of carving turns.

Skiing today at Bear Mountain was still limited while the resort cleans up from the weekends Chevy Grand Prix. Upper Bear Trap and Wildfire were in great shape. Lower Wildfire, on the other hand, was turning into it's typical spring time beach, as all of the skier and rider traffic coming to Bear Mountain was funneled down it's compound fall line.

The park on Middle Dream Maker was in nice shape. It was funneling out onto Great Eastern, again due to the Grand Prix cleanup. On a lark, when we got on to Great Eastern we decided to keep going all the way to the lower skyeship terminal on Route 4. Most of the way we took "Home Stretch", which had great snow coverage. It was just a beautiful day to cruise down the mountain.

From the Skyeship, I took Upper Dream Maker to Cruise Control. Mary took Skye Burst to Cruise. Upper Dream Maker was still firm on skier's right in the shade. Skiers left, in full sunshine, was nice and soft with little bumps forming. Mary reported that Skye Burst had nice soft snow coverage. It had been closed for a couple of days due to the Grand Prix so it did not get packed down with skier traffic like some of the other trails.

We finished up with several loops through Needles Eye, Bitter Sweet, Skye Lark and Super Star. Under full sunshine with warm temperatures and a bright blue sky, they were all do overs.. We did not want to leave...so it goes.

Let it snow!