3/14 Afternoon Turns

[enjoralas]

Really had planned on getting up the mountain in the morning, was aiming for 9ish, but, you know, life and all that. By the time i got up and cleared the driveway and sidewalks of the snow that had accumulated so far, it was after noon. Got hold of Pops to see if he was up for going, and he was still taking care of snow removal at his place. 

 

Long story short, we suck at Powder Day rules and ended up not getting to Blue until almost 3 pm. Booted up and hit the six pack and headed over to Lazy Mile. The wind drifts on Tuts were nuts! It was like the Roller Groomer had a triple sized Red Bull while grooming. Dropped in to Lazy and got quick confirmation of what I was expecting, with so much fresh on the trails it was pushed all around in bumps and piles -- and it was fricken' awesome!

 

Far from the frozen ruts that get dug out with traffic after a freeze/thaw, or the giant sugar/slush piles that come during the springlike days, these bumps and piles were like giant soft pillowy milk-filled titties of goodness. We may have missed the untracked snow, but hell, at least I don't know what I was missing. The snow was very forgiving to less than perfect form and skill level. Line mistakes that on another day (and on other skis) would have thrown me out of rhythm or grabbed a ski and thrown me were just absorbed into the soft bumps and I continued on my way. The E88s couldn't have performed better, I couldn't be happier with the way they skied. 

 

Went down Lazy doing a lot more work that usual and made the hairpin down to the Main Street Lift. Took that up and thought about a run down Switchback but Dad vetoed it, thought it looked too tore up so we headed over to check out the woods in the Sleepy Hollow glade. Thought the cover looked a tad thin so we didn't get in there, instead cruised down Come Around to Burma and took a nice run down that all the way to the valley. On the way I cruised through the Yeti cutoff on Burma and there was actually a bunch of untracked in there! I saw why as the lack of pitch on the trail made it some hard damn work getting through there!

 

We took the six pack back up to the summit and the wind was something special. Watched some little shaver going in reverse as the wind blew him backwards. Fought our way to the top of Paradise and swapped skis out with my dad to let him take a run on the Rossi's. That was enough to convince him that it's time to upgrade. It was a lot spicier getting down on his sticks than mine, but I still enjoyed the heck out of the run. I did have to fight to hold on a couple of times, but completed the run without wiping out. We jumped back on the lift and went back up into the wind to run ParaWeaver, after swapping skis back. Just more of the same -- fun, soft bumps as far as the eye could see, no wrong line down the trail. 

 

Pops had said that was going to be his last run, but enjoyed the Para part of the run so much that we decided to head back up for another Paradise run. I focused on trying to run the edges, and slightly off the edges, during that last run. While not untracked pow, it was certainly less tracked and bumped out and had a nice layer of loose on them. I would have liked to get off the trails and into some of the more creative stuff, but just didn't trust most of it and didn't want to mess up new skis. I did take one detour through the trees on the right on this last run, leading to a quick little switchback on what I guess will be part of Trail Coming Soon before it rejoined Paradise around the corner. So that was fun.

 

We only took the 5 runs and didn't stretch ourselves with any blacks (almost ran back up for a solo Main Street run) but damn, just a fun hour and half or so on the slopes. Definitely sorry I didn't get out earlier, but also definitely glad we came out. Don't think I'll be back on the snow until Friday when we are playing hooky to head to Camelback. Tomorrow after work I own my 3 year old some time playing in the snow. 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice report...glad you enjoy the gnar. A lot of lower level skiers only like firm groomed snow. When you start skiing out west a lot of the conditions you experience is tracked up fresh snow...