Serafina
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
A couple of favors were pulled not too long ago, and the result was that I got to ride along with one of my mountain's grooming squad this evening as they got the runs ready for Saturday crowds. It was SERIOUSLY COOL. Including the part where the PistenBully started to slide sideways downhill while my host was grooming the cat track that crosses the trailheads for a bunch of the diamonds. It didn't slide far, but it slid far enough that I knew it was sliding, and in that fraction of a moment I thought "Well, I always said that I wanted to die at the base after running a black, I just thought I would be on skis when it happened".
As your basic, garden-variety Carving Junkie I take the liveliest interest in the quality of the surface on the runs, and the grooming operate seemed (apparently) happy to answer my (apparently) bottomless pit of questions...including the burning curiosity about How They Move Snow Back Up Onto A Pitch After Snowboarders Have Thoughtlessly Plowed It All Off To The Bottom, and What Is The Theoretical Range of Ways To Fix Glare Ice, How Do They Decide What Gets Groomed, and What Causes Those Death Cookies Anyway, and Where Does White Ice Come From.
Actually, I already had a theory about that last one, and it turned out to be correct. Too much grooming, or grooming when our regional high-moisture-content powder is still wet compacts the snow too much, which is where hardpack comes from. And if the hardpack gets wet and groomed, or just groomed too many times without having new snow in the mix, it turns into white ice.
And getting a front-row view to cord getting laid down on the run that I was already intending to collect first tracks on in the morning was, well, priceless.
As your basic, garden-variety Carving Junkie I take the liveliest interest in the quality of the surface on the runs, and the grooming operate seemed (apparently) happy to answer my (apparently) bottomless pit of questions...including the burning curiosity about How They Move Snow Back Up Onto A Pitch After Snowboarders Have Thoughtlessly Plowed It All Off To The Bottom, and What Is The Theoretical Range of Ways To Fix Glare Ice, How Do They Decide What Gets Groomed, and What Causes Those Death Cookies Anyway, and Where Does White Ice Come From.
Actually, I already had a theory about that last one, and it turned out to be correct. Too much grooming, or grooming when our regional high-moisture-content powder is still wet compacts the snow too much, which is where hardpack comes from. And if the hardpack gets wet and groomed, or just groomed too many times without having new snow in the mix, it turns into white ice.
And getting a front-row view to cord getting laid down on the run that I was already intending to collect first tracks on in the morning was, well, priceless.