Several Sunrises

By:  Greg
November 26, 2012 5:11 am | Category: Quick Update, Skiing

Last week featured an epic high pressure system that hung over the (hungover?) north-east for days on end. Needless to say, in such a weather pattern, the chances of powder snow are slim-to-none. The FIS Eastern Bureau made the best of the situation though (whilst reading and drooling over the Western Bureau’s missives) by catching as many sunrises-from-mountain-tops-and-then-schussing-down-in-time-for-work as possible. Here they are (in order of appearance) with brief commentary.

Sunrise one saw us cruising on an inch of snow overtop some rock-hard manmade snow.
sunrise one

Sunrise two featured ROCK HARD snow after a warmup wiped out the aforementioned natural snow, and then was followed by a chilly night crisping up everything in sight. This is probably about as close to skiing on a corral reef as we’ll ever get!
sunrise two

Sunrise three wasn’t really much of a sunrise at all. A very weak disturbance swept through embedded in the high pressure system, scouring out the warm air (noted in sunrise two), and dumped a ultra-thin veneer of pow for us to enjoy. (Hint: there’s a short video of this day for your enjoyment here)
sunrise three

Sunrise four was cold and clear. With snow guns going, this was pretty fun. Storm skiing under azure skies? Wild.
sunrise four

Sunrise five featured simply perfect corduroy. I know, I know, I know. It’s lame to talk about perfect corduroy on a skiing blog. Before you slap my wrist though, just hold your tongue until you and I get up early one day, earn some turns on perfectly groomed packed-powder, and hoot-and-holler all the way to the bottom. When we get to the bottom, and only when we get to the bottom, will I allow you to slap my wrist. We’ll see if you can wipe the sh*t-eating grin off your face and do it. We’ll just see.
sunrise five

Sunrise six was yet another morning for—“gulp”—perfect corduroy.
sunrise six

And finally, we come to the last of our several sunrises, sunrise SEVEN. There actually were a few more sunrises between sunrise one and seven that are undocumented in this post, but I am only including seven because it honestly bugs me that the word several doesn’t mean seven, and so I’m on a personal quest to limit the use of the word “several” to mean seven. Of course I’ll fail and contradict myself some day, but that’s another matter. In any case sunrise seven was our return to true winter around here. Several inches fell when the forecast orographically enhanced trough swung over head, and dropped up to 5 inches (not 7 though…damn it!) along the Green Mountain spine. It felt good to get back to winter. Now let’s have some more on the east coast!
sunrise seven

Hope you enjoyed the sunny weather of November. See you on the hill as we see what the end of the month (and December) have in store. For now though, I’m out to catch a sunrise!

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8 Comments

  1. road trip
    wrote on November 26th, 2012 at 10:42 am  
    1

    Fast corduroy = get-to-the-bottom tears = tears of joy

    There’s room in this world for all schussing!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  2. Ben
    wrote on November 26th, 2012 at 12:03 pm  
    2

    Those are some nice looking sunrises! Hard to complain about a sunrise schuss, no matter what the snow…

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  3. mtl_ripper
    wrote on November 26th, 2012 at 3:25 pm  
    3

    Groomed corduroy of packed pow is tied for second place with perfect corn snow. Because you can go really, really fast on it, relatively safely, and slash big turns, and, uh… thanks for the sunrises.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  4. Icedub
    wrote on November 28th, 2012 at 8:51 am  
    4

    Awesome shots! I’m curious- how do you guys ascend- skins, snow shoes or just boots up the side of the trail?

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Greg
      wrote on November 28th, 2012 at 9:28 am  
      5

      Good question. Most of us use skins. Our friend Christian (and resident snowboard/splitboard guru) has some interesting thoughts for snowboarders about the avaialble touring equipment. I’ll try to get him to chime in if that’s relevant.

      As far as buying the gear… Look…We don’t schill on this site too much, but for stuff like skins and related equipment, we gotta recommend OGE/GearX.com. They got what you need, are good folks to work with, and prices can’t be beat.

      Let us know if you have any specific questions.

  5. DC
    wrote on November 28th, 2012 at 6:36 pm  
    6

    All left turns, except 2. Looks rad.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  6. Dwight
    wrote on December 3rd, 2012 at 4:36 pm  
    7

    Are most resorts cool with pre-lift skins around here? I grew up here skiing MRG, spent my college years touring the Wasatch out in utah and now am back for med school. Needless to say I’m itching to get out but broke the lift habit a while ago…

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Jake
      wrote on December 9th, 2012 at 5:53 pm  
      8

      Being involved in the uphill skiing business, I discuss this topic with a lot of mtn ops folks. From my discussions the best uphill policies are Smuggs and Jay, worst is Sugarbush. So support the good guys. Shun the bad.

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