Sunday River 12-6-12

[Ride Delaware ?]

I had off today so I decided to go out and take a few runs. I was awake early, but really took my time getting to the mountain. I didn't get there until 10, and I widened my stance, so that took some time. As soon as I went to lace up my boots, a lace broke, so I had to go up to the shop and buy a couple sets of laces, just in case, and then I finally got out on the hill. It was about 11:10 when I finally made it to the lift.

 

Compared to last year, we have almost 20 trails more at this same time. It is still early. We could have had more, but we have been experiencing daytime temps in the 40s and nights still too warm for snowmaking. That being said, yesterday the snow was nice and soft, mad sweet and low, and I knew that when the temps dropped last night, conditions would get challenging. I decided to stick on South Ridge again and shore up some of my weaker skills, so I didn't take many pics. Temps were hovering around freezing at the base.

 

Most of the trails were quite firm with unedgable groomer tracks. Lots of sliding. Some of the trails had a loose granular. Some trails had snowmaking last night, so some of the snow was nice, and where it got too wet, was far too firm to edge on. Very few guns on open terrain. It sounds like they have decided to only blow snow on open terrain, if it's absolutely necessary. Therefore, some new trails were seeing snowmaking now that we are gearing up toward the Christmas rush.

 

All in all, it was another fun early season day. I have off again tomorrow, and I am going to try to make it to some new terrain. We have a slight warmup coming again this weekend, so hopefully after that, things will cool down and we will all get some serious expansion. Pics are below: