Dec. 22
Day 4 of the season for me. Arrived late and surprised how many people where in attendance. Much busier than what I saw last year midweek. Got a little over 18,000’ in 3 hours.
I woke up and wasn’t certain where I was going to go. For some reason management at Crotched “zeros” out the trail report at night. Vail originally was doing this at most-all their areas but they’ve seemed to stop this for the most part. Crotched was the only area that did that yesterday. I have to ask Why?!?
I ended up choosing Crotched as I knew I could park close and more terrain was open than the other NH Vail properties.
2 routes off the top with 5 open by the time you’re partway down (Galaxy - Magnitude - Meteor - Velocity - Super Nova).
3 lifts plus carpet open (Valley with no scanners for your Epic stats 😞 not that it matters as the EpicMix stats page just dies without loading - Rocket - West). West and Valley were ski on. Rocket was ski on at times to a few chair wait. Strange that all scanners and nearly all lifties went on lunch at the same time leaving one scanner and one liftie on the Rocket for a bit.
Decent base on open/groomed terrain. Nice packed powder. The standard icy patches (e.g. after the curve in Moon Walk) were in great shape, only a hard packed very edgable surface. Much better grooming that last year.
I didn’t try the open glade nor Upper Plutos (bumps down to brush) as I didn’t have rock skis. I know it’s pretty clean but no need to tempt face on $1200 i.Titans. But it sounded like a lot of skiers and riders had fun in the glade. A couple skiers tried the bumps.
Run of the Day had to be Meteor. Fantastic grooming and fantastic snow. Even a little soft on skiers left along the B-netting.
Satellite Summit was the worst run of the day. Groomers cut into dirt/rocks/brush in some areas with the “iciest” (still not that bad but clearly worst snow in mountain) whales just feet further. In the summer is that trail just not flat? Similar nasty icy whales and thin patches last year on that bottom pitch.
Rocket did have some issues. I got stuck on it for 6 minutes halfway up when it lurched all of a foot forward for another minute or so pause. Following every ride up had slows/stops. Eventually a mechanic climbed tower 11 and was inspecting the uphill side. By that time the lift didn’t have issues. I’m guessing a brittle bar or rope position sensor was giving trouble.
