Post your first ski day of the 06/07 season here.

[ski diva]

We'd love to hear about it. Where'd you go? How were the conditions? How much of the mountain was open? What was the weather like? Were there many people out? Who'd you go with?

Yeah, we want to know everything (just call us nosy).

So whenever that first day is, celebrate it by posting here!

 

[Lori_K]

October 28, 2006. Wolf Creek, Colorado (opening weekend).

After skiing in the northeast the last few years, getting out in October was a real treat. Conditions were icy/hardpack in the morning, softening up pretty nicely in the afternoon. (Very similar to East-coast spring conditions).
Skied with the hubby from 8:30am to 2:30 pm, and my calves were just SCREAMING the next day.
First couple runs were very rough, felt like I'd never skied before.
Temps were in the low 50's by afternoon, with about 40% of the runs open.

(Please don't kill me for posting a snow pic!!! :o )

 

[ski diva]

Is that a rock or a dead body poking through the snow on the left? :D

Lucky you for getting out there already. I'm jealous.

Thanks for posting the pic.

 

[LisaBatt]

Finally...Friday Nov 24th at Belleayre (catskills)

Ok ladies...it was more like a taste of skiing...just one lift and one trail opened from mid-section to bottom (intermediate/expert combination), but it sure felt great getting out there. Lift ticket was cheap $25, and can use that lift ticket in mid-March for a "free lift ticket" exchange. Skied for just 3 hours. Probably due to that fact that I was pretty tired after hosting Thanksgiving dinner. It was the right day to go, considering the warm up trend again for the next few days. Looking foward to next weekend with colder (hopefully) temperatures expected!!

 

[HotChocolate]

Killington 11/26/2006

I finally went skiing today! Yeah! I went to Killington on a bus with my ski club the OC's Out of Control from Albany, NY. It was $25.00 for lift plus $10.00 for a roundtrip bus ride. It took just under 2 hours to get there and there were about 20 or so people on the bus. Everyone was smiling and laughing and happy. Changing your altitude really does change your attitude for sure!!! There were 7 lifts running and 17 trails open. Killington really can make some snow and there was enough so I'm not even going to complain.

It was soooooooooo crowded I felt a little uneasy at times but I didn't care because I was skiing. The morning runs reminded me of driving in NYC. But after lunch it cleared out a bit and we hit some different trails. It was 50 degrees sunny and bright I would say the conditions were spring like, but no flowers :D

I skied only until 2:30 taking a short break to eat, most of the trails we hit were bumped up so by mid afternoon my legs felt like wet noodles. All in all it was a great first day, I'm glad I went and can't wait to go again.

I took a few shots and they are below.


My club sister Janet...she always has the cutest outfits.

Janet again..I couldn't resist she wiped out doing her first turn.

More photos below!

 

[HotChocolate]

The first view of the mountain OMG where's the snow???

Here it is....

And here I am...........HAPPY!!!

 

[SnowHot]

How's the "yen to ski" quiver?
And so you know, I'm not speaking to you until I get to ski. So There!!!

 

[Jilly]

I'm so jealous. I can't wait for Wednesday. I'm on snow at Tremblant for the CSIA convention. 3 days with the top instructors in Canada. And no internet, so I can't post till I get back Sunday.!!

 

[volklgirl]

You're killing me here!!

OK guys, now I have drool along with the Pepsi to clean out of my keyboard :o . Be easy on us poor souls...no more pics until we have snow!?! Please???:( :D

 

[Thatsagirl]

Jay Peak, opening day, Nov. 24

Jay opened with ONE trail, top-to-bottom, on Stateside (the lower peak). It was a gorgeous day! You could see for miles and miles: Mt. Washington, Quebec, Camel's Hump, Stowe, Sugarbush, Adirondacks... Everyone was grinning, just happy to be getting some turns in. The most common comment I overheard: "If there's not going to be much snow, at least let it be a warm, sunny day!" How often in New England do you get to ski on opening day in your sunglasses, spring hat and gloves, and just light layers?

The snow: vewy, vewy funky! :D Like Styrofoam ball bearings. The Jet is a single-diamond trail that is rather steep at the top, so the snow got skied off that section by noon. The sides were the place to be, covered with some pretty deep Styrofoam ball bearings. The center of the trail was skied down to a Styrofoam ice--edgeable but not? It wasn't blue ice, it wasn't scary-oh-my-gosh-I'm-gonna-fall ice. It had some texture, but nothing you could edge unless you sideslipped or had razor-sharp race skis. So, in the late afternoon, everyone just sideslipped one section, and it was so funny to watch! Everyone was laughing as they did it, lined up like a class but just sideslipping their way down that section. And then they'd all open up and rip the rest of the trail! The bottom was very nice, those ball bearings really move you along without requiring any effort.

It wasn't terribly crowded, though there were a few times when we got stuck in the middle of a wave of people and had to stand aside to wait for an opening. Interestingly, we only saw maybe two or three people who "shouldn't" have been trying to ski this trail. Lots of tele-skiers were out (many of the locals tele), some kids from the race team, a few park rats, some college-age guys that were clearly "big mountain" skiers, quite a few women laying down some nice lines... Best part: NO accidents all day. The patrollers love a quiet day.

All in all, it was a very good first day on the mountain.

Thatsagirl

 

[ski diva]

I feel like a junkie -- I finally got my fix! Skied for about 2 hours this morning over at Okemo. And it was ------ not bad. The temps rose into the 50s so the snow was pretty soft. And actually, it's nice to ski without being so awfully cold.

HOWEVER -- you know it's not a good sign when you get to the top and the lift attendant's car is parked there on the grass (yes, he drove up)! The mountain has no snow except on one trail (they say they have snow on four, but it's essentially one; you know how that goes).

Here's how it worked today: they had a shuttle from the lodge to the Northstar Quad, the lift that takes you to the top of the mountain. After you take that up, you can ski about half way down, where the Glades Peak lift takes you back up to the top (you can't ski all the way to the bottom). When you're done skiing, you have to take the Glades lift back up to top, ride the Northstar chair back down to the bottom, then take the shuttle back over to the lodge. So it's not an easy process.

Still, it was skiing, so I was happy, happy, happy.

It's supposed to get a lot colder towards the end of the week, so I know they'll be blasting out the snow as soon as it does. So next week should be better. I don't think I'll be out again til then, anyway.

 

[Thatsagirl]

HOWEVER -- you know it's not a good sign when you get to the top and the lift attendant's car is parked there on the grass (yes, he drove up)! The mountain has no snow except on one trail (they say they have snow on four, but it's essentially one; you know how that goes).

Oops, coffee all over the monitor and keyboard! :D :D

They probably could have driven up at Jay too, but no one did...no one practical enough to think of it... ;)

Scott and I were laughing that if Jay was any other mountain, instead of claiming one trail open, they would have claimed five or six or seven or eight: Upper Right Jet, Upper Left Jet, Upper Middle Jet, Middle Left Jet, and so forth...

 

[ski diva]

I know -- it's really a game they all play: a 10 yd cut off is a trail. But we know better, don't we? :D

 

[Thatsagirl]

Well, we ladies ARE smart... :p

 

[Jilly]

Had a problem posting this last night. Just spent 5 days at Tremblant for the CSIA fall members convention and 2 days of skiing. Well anyone in East knows what the weather was like. It was a total downpour on Thursday. If you ever see the Descente "poncho" raincoats - buy one!! Tremblant had 3 ways down the mountain for 2 days of the convention. Only 2 ways on Friday. Friday the weather turned just terrible. Because I had a Tremblant module leader we were down the mountian in good time. The ride down the gondola was slow, but no stops. We had company staying with us and they wanted one more run. Well it took them 1 hour to come down a normal 9 minute trip. Just after that the power went out in most of the village. They had power in the upper area, so a few places were open to eat. It snowed, we had ice pellets and wind. Saturday was better with snow flurries that accumulated, and cold temps which meant that the snow guns were turned on again. Foggy up top, but good snow. We quite early as the runs were really crowded and we'd skied hard for 3 days before. Sunday they managed to open 1 more run on the south side of the mountain which also opened up another chair. The crowd was still bad for the amount of terrain open. With the cold this week and some snow in the forecast hopefully things are going to get better. Just a note there was a major fire Friday night and one of the condo places Tremblant les Eaux is a total loss from my source up there.

 

[Lilgeorg]

Yesterday was my first day of skiing and we chose Killington, Vt. The 4 trails that were open had snow guns blasting but all in all a day on the slopes. We did not stay long because there where busses of kids and snowboards arriving. since the slopes were already very crowed, we elected to bug out and return when things were a little safer for old people. That said... it was great to be out on the snow again.

 

[volklgirl]

Safe to post pics now!

OK, we're still not skiing yet, but at least there's snow on the ground now, so....

Post away on your 1st day pics!! :D

 

[Jilly]

I didn't take any pics as it was R'ing or the snow guns were blazing. Not good stuff. The Tremblant-insider has posted a few from over the weekend on his site.

 

[Thatsagirl]

I was at Sugarloaf this weekend, conditions sound similar to Tremblant. Rain on Friday destroyed the one intermediate trail they had open, so only a beginner run was open Saturday. I did not ski. Instead I did other "ski writer" things like check out how they turn French fries cooking grease into fuel (very neat and so environmentally friendly, now I am determined to eat more fries! ) and watch the students from the Carrabassett Valley Academy practice off-snow on trampolines, climbing walls, skateboards in halfpipes, etc., since there wasn't any ski terrain to practice on. For about three hours on Saturday afternoon, high winds caused the entire Sugarloaf Village to lose power. That night, we had a banquet for the ski writers and it was brought to our attention that the fabulous gourmet meal had been prepped by candlelight! Needless to say, the chef and kitchen staff all received standing ovations from us. Power came back on at 5:30 and our dinner was at 6:30.

Overnight, they blasted snow on the intermediate trail that had been decimated by the rain the day before. We had first tracks Sunday morning. Frigid and windy! It was very challenging conditions, to say the least, but hey, you aren't an all-mountain skier until you can handle any condition thrown at you. :D It's even better when you can't see because your goggles are covered with snow from the guns. I did find some powder down the edges that allowed me to do some nice rolling turns. Many of the ski writers are from Boston and south, so this was their first day of the season. Those who ventured out were grinning through their ice-glazed goggles and neck warmers. ;)

The cold weather for this week, as well as flurries and snow showers, should help them recover pretty well by the weekend.

Thatsagirl

 

[SnowHot]

First turns for SnowHot at Crystal Mountain Michigan 12/8/06

Well, ladies, we've been getting snow all week long. So I was excited to be at Crystal for First Bell on Friday.

I got up at 2 AM to snow plow. Finally got done working at noon, just in time to head to Crystal for their 1PM opening.

They had (according to them 16 runs open, but it's more like 5 runs, 2 lifts
The snow was fast, some power areas but mostly granular man made snow. BUT....I WAS SKIING AND THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERED
I really had a great time with my husband, but both of us were fatigued because of the early start to our work day so we only skied for 4 hrs then headed back home.
I was sleeping by 7:30 pm, and ready for First chair on Saturday morning.

We Got there for First chair, 9 more runs open(according to them) more like 4. The snow conditions were significantly better, well groomed. We met up with friends, skied from 9 AM to 4. Feels great!

I'm soooooooo ready to head to Stowe!:D