New England PMTS Meetup

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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby Mac » Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:41 pm

(note: if the conditions are truly that bad, I may be amenable to calling it a half-day and finding someplace that serves tasty refreshing beverages

There are places like that at Killington? No way! :shock:
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby Mac » Thu Mar 11, 2010 9:02 am

Things are now looking up for Saturday weather wise, according to noaa.gov.
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby meput » Thu Mar 11, 2010 4:09 pm

Saturday PM rain showers is the latest from the Weather Channel/weather.com. See you at Pico Saturday AM!
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby Skizoo » Thu Mar 11, 2010 5:46 pm

It looks like we might get a few precip free hours in on Saturday.. It rained in Ludlow today for about an hour, though it looked like some snow above 2K, but my wife drove by Pico and said it had not rained there, as of about 4 PM. It never got as warm today as it was supposed to.. it was 40 around noon but dropped down to the low 30's really quickly and is below freezing right now, but not by much. The skiing was not quite as soft today as on Wednesday, at least above about 2K and Pico's summit lift starts at about 2300 ft so hopefully conditions will hold up well there.

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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby ginaliam » Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:57 am

Dan Boisvert,

Looks like the Sunday rain will be southern in Nature-If you're willing to change your sunday plans from Magic (which might be in the eye of this storm) to Sugarbush (which is considerably further north)-I'll have a heavily discounted ticked for you. PM me if interested.

Liam
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby Skizoo » Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:23 am

I skied Pico this morning, (Friday Mar 12) so here's the report..

Temps at the base about 38, broken clouds, upper mountain above 3000 FT in the clouds, summit temp around freezing.
First lift up around 9:30, skied a warm up run under the Golden Express lift, the snow was extremely wet.. so I'm thinking it likely rained at Pico yesterday.. the snow was incredibly sticky in places.. (Not enough pink wax apparently)

after that I headed to the summit.. the groomers from the top were 49er and Pike, which is pretty typical.. visibility was extremely poor, maybe 10-20 feet between 3500-4000 feet and then maybe 40 feet till about 3000 were it broke, it was also quite windy... the snow was better up top, but still wet.. but not really sticky, but it was 'clumpy'.

With the poor visibility most people were skiing slowly and along the tree lines, 49er was decent, though, far from optimal, but carveable.. as you got down to about 2700 feet you had to again deal with some sticky snow.

I next skied Upper Pike from the top, Pike is wider and the visibility at the top was really poor.. It's steeper than 49er, the trail is split groomed, moguls on skiers right on Upper Pike, skiers left is groomed.. Clumpy moguls were forming on the groomed side but they were very hard to see, so skiing Upper Pike was far from ideal.. that was my only run on Upper Pike today.. On Middle and Lower Pike, earlier in the week they had let nice small to mid size moguls build up on skiers right, today they had flattened them out but the grooming was a bit uneven so the best snow was in the middle or skiers left..

I then did 49er again and cut under the quad and hit Birch Glades which earlier in the week had some really fun mid size bumps and great snow.. I was expecting some nice soft spring bumps... that's not what I got.. today, it was like skiing a glue factory, it literally felt like there was super glue on the snow, (I know, more wax, but I really didn't expect the snow to be this wet) it was damn near impossible to turn the skis comfortably, Every transition was like someone slamming on the brakes.. also, when you planted your poles on a mogul the pole sunk in like 2 feet, it was just really funky snow the whole way down and absolutely no fun at all..(but partly my fault)

I spent the rest of the morning hitting 49er from the top, it skied the best and though visibility stayed poor above 3K, 49er was fun... far from perfect and maybe not even average.. but OK..If the visibility would have improved Upper Pike and 49er would have been a lot better,

I would expect they will groom Upper KA from the top as well as 49er and Pike on Saturday, Upper KA was great last Monday, it had some nice small bumps, it is really a fun trail with lots of character..But I didn't hit it today..

So as long as they don't get any more rain they'll be OK, if the clouds lift it will be decent..I'm hoping the snow may dry out a bit overnight but it's so damp out, and above freezing top to bottom that I don't know if that's going to happen, also, there was a bit of goggle icing in the clouds but not severe..

Skier traffic was light, maybe 200 people on the mountain if that.. with heavier skier traffic it will get chewed up really quickly, we need some colder air.. but none in the forecast..

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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby dan.boisvert » Fri Mar 12, 2010 5:43 pm

Thanks for the invite, Liam. I pulled the plug on Magic for Sunday after seeing the same thing you mentioned in the forecast, and am definitely up for Sugarbush--you'll have a PM inbound momentarily.

Thank you for the reconnaissance, Dave--I'll make sure I get some fluoro on the skis tonight. :)

I'll see everybody bright and early tomorrow AM!
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby meput » Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:16 pm

First of all, thank you Dan for organizing the get together today at Pico. I enjoyed meeting and skiing with everybody who made it. It was sad that mother nature was not kinder to us regarding the weather and ski conditions. Got back to Maine to find out it was sunny and minimal wind at the 'loaf :? Go figure! Thank you to everyone who made it, I like putting a face to several of our forum posters. Thank you for putting up with my daughter and me :mrgreen:

Jim
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby Skizoo » Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:04 pm

Jim, it was nice meeting and skiing with you, your daughter, and the entire group.. and thanks to Dan for organizing everything..!

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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby ToddW » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:58 pm

It was great meeting everybody and putting faces to names. I was particularly impressed by Jim's daughter Kristen (sp?), who is a cunning woman: she parted her dad from his supershapes and she skis them well :lol: Even Mother Nature helped out: she kindly held off doing her worst until a few hours after the lifts closed.

If you're reading this and were unable to attend because of the short notice, some of us are already talking about having another get together next season. Do join us next season -- a good time was had by all yesterday!
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby meput » Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:25 pm

Mac wrote:Pick a time and place. I will be there if I can. I'll see if I can't get a few more people interested.


That was my position for this year's gathering and any future gatherings.

Todd, thank you for complimenting my daughter Kristin's cunning. Daughter #2 Caitlin decided she needed to acquire the new supershapes for herself today. I guess it is genetic from their mother. Women!? :roll: ! Kristin enjoyed it enough that she wants to do a camp next winter. She and Cait are already conspiring together to pull this off. Of course you know who will be paying for the trip :arrow:....Dad! :wink: !

If anyone decides to make the trip to Sugarloaf, give me a shout. Remember, it is the King of Spring skiing in the east!

Jim
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby dan.boisvert » Mon Mar 15, 2010 5:43 pm

Thank you for coming, everyone!

It was great to meet you all and assign faces to names...and then to assign helmet/goggle/jacket combinations to names (thank you for re-introducing yourselves--apparently I should pay more attention to noses and chins).

It seems I could stand to learn a few things from your daughters, Jim. Does my father have to be a skier for me to klepto his skis and talk him into sending me to PMTS camp? It sounds like I could save quite a bit of money with this method!

Todd, thank you for the cat tracks and for helping me out with those drills towards the end of the day. It's clear you've been paying attention in camp. :)


On Sunday, I met up with Liam and his friends at Magic (we re-re-decided based on wind holds further north), and had an absolute blast. I think we experienced every form of precipitation I'm aware of during the day, but the few inches that accumulated were fast and super-edgeable graupel, which made for really great skiing. It was quite a fun day, and I hope that by next year I'll have improved enough that I'll be able to hit the more interesting lines without slowing them down as much. Thanks for putting up with me, Liam!


There has been discussion already of doing this again next year, and now that I know people will show up and the event will go, I'd be happy to get things moving a bit earlier. Aside from picking the date further in advance, does anybody have suggestions on what we should improve for next year? Was everybody cool with a one-day thing? For those of you driving further to attend, would you prefer a second day to help justify the driving? How about the location?

Please help me make next year better while your memory is still fresh. :)
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby ginaliam » Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:59 am

Dan,

It was really cool you've started putting this together. I look forward to more meet ups in the future.

All worries about technique, styles, etc aside-skiing is a fantastic social sport and forums like this are a great way to expand the skiing crew. Thanks for getting the eastern ball rolling, Dan.

I'm glad we met up at magic (and you didn't hold anyone up-there were only 10 people skiing on the mountain anyway! :D )-Rest of the week was pretty great too.

Season isn't over yet..

Liam
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby meput » Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:57 pm

Dan,

Nice arm twisting over in the pictures forum. 8) My thoughts for future meetings are simple. Tell me where & when, and I will do my best to be there. I am easy to please when I do not have to do the planning. Since you have the ability to organize an event (and do it well), I will ultimately defer to you.

With that said, a trip to NH would be shorter traveling for me. Waterville Valley would allow Glen Scannell to be easily involved. Cannon or Wildcat might be fun. I've heard too many negatives regarding Loon and Bretton Woods. With enough head notice, a two day ski meet up would be doable. I would have enjoyed doing Magic with the second group but I do not do well with driving over 3-4 hours on a day prior to my going to work. I don't bounce back as well as I used to, it sucks to get older. :evil: The best alternative for me would be for everyone to come to me. :lol: A two day trip to Maine would be fantastic. A day at Sugarloaf then a day at Sunday River or Saddleback. Great skiing here in Maine!

Are you coming up to Sunday River this weekend?

Jim
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Re: New England PMTS Meetup

Postby dan.boisvert » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:03 pm

meput wrote:Dan,

Nice arm twisting over in the pictures forum. 8) My thoughts for future meetings are simple. Tell me where & when, and I will do my best to be there. I am easy to please when I do not have to do the planning. Since you have the ability to organize an event (and do it well), I will ultimately defer to you.

With that said, a trip to NH would be shorter traveling for me. Waterville Valley would allow Glen Scannell to be easily involved. Cannon or Wildcat might be fun. I've heard too many negatives regarding Loon and Bretton Woods. With enough head notice, a two day ski meet up would be doable. I would have enjoyed doing Magic with the second group but I do not do well with driving over 3-4 hours on a day prior to my going to work. I don't bounce back as well as I used to, it sucks to get older. :evil: The best alternative for me would be for everyone to come to me. :lol: A two day trip to Maine would be fantastic. A day at Sugarloaf then a day at Sunday River or Saddleback. Great skiing here in Maine!

Are you coming up to Sunday River this weekend?

Jim


Thanks, Jim!

I'll definitely keep NH in mind for next year. If we have roughly the same group, North Conway-ish might be a pretty reasonable option. I like your Cannon/Wildcat idea. Waterville Valley could be a good one-day destination, though I'm having trouble thinking of another mountain nearby that would be good for a second day. If we start pulling more folks from NY, though--especially from further west--we'll probably stick with somewhere in VT. On the bright side, since they'd be the new furthest drivers, I'd be harassing them for feedback instead of you. :D

Glen will very likely be at next year's meetup. He wanted to be at the one this year, but I did the scheduling so close to the actual event that he was already booked. I'll set the date much further in advance next year, which should make things easier on everybody.

I think I'll probably maybe hopefully be at Sunday River on Saturday. The plans for this weekend haven't fully solidified yet, and I'm honestly not sure where the pieces are going to fall. If you're at Sunday River anyway on Saturday, feel free to give me a ring mid-morning-ish. Don't go out of your way to get there, though--the crew I'm heading up with is made up of some folks who are rather dedicated to evening festivities, and while I've never had a bad time with them, there are days we don't make it to a mountain at all. This is just one of those weekends.

Next time I know for sure that I'll be skiing in Maine, I'll definitely let you know. I've still got a couple weekends left unbooked this season, and Sugarloaf does appear to have a nice base going.. :)

Cheers,


Dan
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