# Berkshire East - 2/23/2007



## Greg (Feb 23, 2007)

*Date(s) Skied: *Friday, 2/23/2007, 8:30 am - 4:00 pm

*Resort or Ski Area: *Berkshire East, Charlemont, Massachusetts

*Conditions: *Powder, Crud, Natural snow, some areas of thin cover (some areas of no cover...), Temps in the 20's, Mostly sunny am, Mostly cloudy pm, Breezy.

*Trip Report: *Tough to believe that we could have a better day than we did last Friday at Magic, but we did! Berkshire East needs to be skied with some natural snow to truly enjoy its offerings. Today we had plenty of it.

Met up with bvibert, Grassi21, and ALLSKIING in the commuter lot in my town at 6 am. We made it to Berkshire East around 8:15 and had plenty of time to leisurely boot up, grab our lift tickets and still be in line before the chair started loading. We got about the 8th and 9th chairs and didn't quite score first tracks down Liftline, but there was still plenty of untracked for Brian, Dave and me. The mountain picked up about 5" and it was clear from this first run that the day would totally rock.

We spent the morning hitting Liftline, Minnie Dole, UMASS, Jug, East Glades,  Flying Cloud, and Dave and I even did a recon to the Beast! We also met up with Jeremy Clark, Beast marketing guy, and took a few runs with him. After a quick lunch shortly after 11 am, we headed back out. Dave and Chris called it around 3 pm and Brian and I skied right up until 4 pm. Today was my best day this season. I skied strong and aggressively all day and felt great and full of energy. Sweet day for sure. I think I did a solid job showing the guys around. Trail breakdown:

*Liftline:* More than adequate cover. Ton of fun and we hit it many times including dropping in right from the summit shack. Good snow to be found all day, with some dirt, ice and other junk poking through. It really skied great all day though. Chris hit it from the traverse from the bottom.

*Flying Cloud:* Good snowmaking base with bumps and powder under the double. The lower section was all natural with more small bumps with some dirt troughs.

*Jug:* Classic natural trail. Got progressively thinner throughout the day, but it held up well all day. Soft bumps and crud. I love this trail!

*East Glades:* I took Brian and Dave into this tree run from the top. I thought they were both gonna kill me. Took a while to find the top section which basically had no snow at all as it all blew of. We basically just traversed it in an effort to minimize base damage. We all navigated down fine and the lower section skied great. Plenty of snow.

*UMASS*: Steep snowmaking run. Great cover early. Some scrape and blown off snow at the top later in the day.

*Blizzard Island:* Sweet cover. Great intermediate glade that Chris seemed to really enjoy.

*BEAST:* We ducked the rope to go Beast hunting. :blink: This run looks like it can be awesome with the right conditions, but today was not the day. Very thin at the top, a bit better in the middle, and actually pretty good for the final chute at the bottom. I thought Dave was gonna kill me again on this one.  Not a great run, but worth scoping out for better days. Super steep semi-gladed trail. No joke at all and hardest run in SNE, bar none.

*Grizzly:* A patroller noticed us scoping Grizzly while he was farting around with a "Closed" sign. He finally called over, "You can ski it if you want, but it's ugly." He skied around via UMASS and waited for us at the bottom. After hitting it, I skied over to him and said, "Your definition of 'ugly' is far different than mine." :lol: Cool that he let us hit it and made sure we all made it down. Mostly powder for me the entire run!

We also skied many of the natural intermediate trails which was also fun. The 5" of snow skied like more than that. Beast also skis bigger than its 1,180' vert would suggest. The snow quality today was perfect. We expected heavy dense snow; we got fluff. Awesome skiing today!

Anyway, I hope I did the mountain justice and did a good job showing the guys around. Brian and Chris had one day there each, and Dave had never been. Great company today and it was cool to see all of us push our limits a bit today. Got a bunch of video, as did Brian and Dave. I'll get something put together soon. Not counting lunch, 7.5 hours of hard skiing today and I'm shot. Dave gets the dedication award for leaving his house at 3:15 am to make the meet-up in time. Nice job, Dave! :beer:

Thanks guys!


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## Grassi21 (Feb 23, 2007)

Great time today.  After today I love the crud and nat.  Great meeting Dave and really pushing myself today.  I would have to say today is top 3 for best days in my short career.  Getting fresh tracks on lower competition was a sweeeeeet feeling.  Challenging myself on Liftline, Flying Cloud, Jug, and in the woods of Blizzard Island was encouraging.  I def want to hit Blizzard after the next storm..... and there will be another good storm.

After skiing my butt off today, seeing a traffic jam on 84 East, and coming home to a tired prego wife, we decided to bag our trip to the Cape.  I love it when we agree.    Captain Morgan and I will be on the couch for the next few hours.  zzzzzzzzzzzzz


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## Jeff (Feb 23, 2007)

Hey, I was wondering whether you would reccomend it to me for tomorrow, as I am goin somewhere in MA and my choice was Berkshire East, never been there before and I saw it is the biggest in MA, if you could choose to go anywhere in MA, what would you reccomend? 
Thanks, 
            JEFF


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 23, 2007)

Walked in the door at 10:00:blink:  Sweet day great to meet Brian and Chris!! I am past shot....


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## Greg (Feb 23, 2007)

ALLSKIING said:


> Walked in the door at 10:00:blink:  Sweet day great to meet Brian and Chris!! I am past shot....



At some point through my second beer, I looked at the clock this evening around 9 pm and realized you might not even be home yet. You are a dedicated skier for sure. Hope Beast was worth the long day for you.


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## Greg (Feb 23, 2007)

Jeff said:


> Hey, I was wondering whether you would reccomend it to me for tomorrow, as I am goin somewhere in MA and my choice was Berkshire East, never been there before and I saw it is the biggest in MA, if you could choose to go anywhere in MA, what would you reccomend?
> Thanks,
> JEFF



Depends on what you like. If you like gnarley natural snow terrain, Beast. If you like groomed snow, Jiminy. Welcome Jeff!

Too burnt for any video editing. Pics will have to do for now. Click for larger versions.

Beast Lodge when we arrived:




Waiting to load:




Liftline (one of today's best runs):




Brian and Dave on the triple:




Some guys ski thin cover. We ski no cover:












Brian and Dave cursing Greg:


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## Greg (Feb 23, 2007)

Beast!












Dave on Beast right after losing a ski:




Dave on Flying Cloud:




East Glades:




Got some great video of everybody too. Look for my vid sometime this weekend, hopefully. Good night!


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## threecy (Feb 23, 2007)

I heard a rumor that there are some photos of Alpine Zoners in the Berkshire East web site's photo archive


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## Newpylong (Feb 23, 2007)

Yipes, the woods look rough. The rest - looks awesome. I am jealous.

The reason why it skis different than 1170 vertical is because on the books its actualy a touch less than a 1000! : )


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## Greg (Feb 24, 2007)

threecy said:


> I heard a rumor that there are some photos of Alpine Zoners in the Berkshire East web site's photo archive



*Cool!* 



Newpylong said:


> Yipes, the woods look rough. The rest - looks awesome. I am jealous.


Don't let those pics fool you. The glades that were open were good. Lower East Glades and Blizzard Island had plenty of cover. Upper east Glade and Beast? Not so much. Never got in Tomahawk, but Jug had plenty of snow. The videos will reflect that.



Newpylong said:


> The reason why it skis different than 1170 vertical is because on the books its actualy a touch less than a 1000! : )


Why do you say that? Whether Berkshire East skis big or not, there is certainly more vert than Catamount or Butternut which both claim 1,000'.


I feel like I was hit by a bus this morning. :blink: It's a good feeling though....


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## Grassi21 (Feb 24, 2007)

I agree.  I have a pass to Catamount.  I love the place.  Nice groomers, interesting terrain, a steep run in Catapult, and bumps on Offstage.  The Beast is a whole different animal.  The natural snow really kicks your butt.  I think that same truck that hit Greg hit me too.  I feel hung over this AM and it wasn't from the two drinks I had last night.  If we get another storm with 4+ inches, you will find me at the Beast!


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 24, 2007)

Newpylong said:


> Yipes, the woods look rough.


That top part was REAL rough...infact the pics make it look ok:blink:


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## BeanoNYC (Feb 24, 2007)

Greg said:


> Dave gets the dedication award for leaving his house at 3:15 am to make the meet-up in time. Nice job, Dave! :beer:
> 
> Thanks guys!



Not sure if many people can appreciate how tough it is to get out skiing in Mass/VT/NH/Maine from Dave's location.  It's either a ferry to New London or an hour and a half or so Drive WEST just to head North East again.  Dave and Val win the "hardcore" award in my book!  :beer:


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## FRITOLAYGUY (Feb 24, 2007)

Ok Greg you have been home for 12hours where is the video??? This is ridiculous to have to wait this long im disappointed in you.


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## Greg (Feb 24, 2007)

FRITOLAYGUY said:


> Ok Greg you have been home for 12hours where is the video??? This is ridiculous to have to wait this long im disappointed in you.



Ha! I know. Slacker. Working on it here and there. About half done...


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## 2knees (Feb 24, 2007)

Greg said:


> Ha! I know. Slacker. Working on it here and there. About half done...



watching this video will make me further regret going to work friday, im sure.  

take your time greg, i already know i made the wrong choice.


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 24, 2007)

I had to give into the advil about an hr ago. My legs have not been this sore in years... Thanks Greg!!


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## Greg (Feb 24, 2007)

2knees said:


> watching this video will make me further regret going to work friday, im sure.
> 
> take your time greg, i already know i made the wrong choice.



It will and you did. Sorry, dude. Just keeping it real... 

It should be available within 30 mins. YouTube version a bit longer...


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## bvibert (Feb 24, 2007)

A great trip for sure!  My legs and knees are a little sore today, but not too bad.  Guess I wasn't skiing quite hard enough.

It was a pleasure to finally meet Allskiing, and nice to make turns with Greg and Grassi again.  Definitely a WAY better impression of the place than the only other time I was there a couple of years ago for my first AZ gathering.  Greg did a great job of leading us around the mountain, though I could have done without the excursion into upper East Glades, which look a LOT better in the pictures than they were in real life.  No real damage to the skis though, no core shots or anything, just a few deepish scratches and some thoroughly trashed edges.


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## Greg (Feb 24, 2007)

*Vids:*

High Res: *Berkshire East - 2/23/2007* (45+ MB) Big file, but worth the download time.

YouTube:


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## Grassi21 (Feb 24, 2007)

Great job Greg.  The movie definitely captured the vibe of the day.  Now I can officially say that I'm on youtube.


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 24, 2007)

Nice vid Greg...I should have taken a vid of you on the Beast that trail deserves some good footage I was done at that point. What happened with my vid at the end?


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## 2knees (Feb 24, 2007)

ahh crap i knew i shouldnt have watched that.  Nice job guys.  way to step up grassi.  looking good.  allskiing i gotta make it out one of these days with you, nice skiing.


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## bvibert (Feb 24, 2007)

Great video Greg!  I just watched it twice, I watched the YouTube version while I was waiting for the Hi Res version to DL. :beer:

I like the ending credit scene with me meandering through Blizzard Island, I still can't believe I didn't see you there...


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## Greg (Feb 24, 2007)

ALLSKIING said:


> What happened with my vid at the end?



That's a "film age" filter that I applied. I had to convert your file to get it to work in WMM and the color was weird. It's the same filter I applied to the last scene during the credits. Kind of a neat affect.



2knees said:


> ahh crap i knew i shouldnt have watched that.  Nice job guys.  way to step up grassi.  looking good.  allskiing i gotta make it out one of these days with you, nice skiing.



Chris has improved. Skiing that cruddy natural snow will definitely result in better skiing. Dave is a helluva skier indeed.



bvibert said:


> I like the ending credit scene with me meandering through Blizzard Island, I still can't believe I didn't see you there...



Incognito camera work at its best... 

Still smiling... Legs are *tight *though... :blink:


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## 2knees (Feb 24, 2007)

Watching it a couple of times, greg, the last 2 runs you take are impressive.  nice work on all the things you wanted to improve on.  tight stance, quiet upperbody, hands in control up front.  i'd swear that looked like a real true bumper.


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## FRITOLAYGUY (Feb 25, 2007)

Greg of all your videos thats the best ive seen you look all year, pretty flawless in my  opinion, allskiing the same.. Grassi21 and Bvibert, boy you 2 have made some serious progress , take a look at one of your videos from a month ago and look now, big strides, you guys all looked good out there, i gotta meet up with u guys at somepoint..


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## Greg (Feb 25, 2007)

Thanks for the kind words, guys. I quite possibly skied the best I ever have on Friday. I was able to keep my form going from open to close. That second to last clip right before the credits was my final run of the day. My legs are still cooked today though. Friday was Day 20 and all the mileage this season is really starting to pay off.


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## Greg (Feb 25, 2007)

Greg said:


> Friday was Day 20 and all the mileage this season is really starting to pay off.



BTW, after 20 days without a tune, many of which included some intimacy with rocks and whatnot, my skis are finally back in the shop getting some much needed base repairs and a tune...


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 25, 2007)

2knees said:


> Watching it a couple of times, greg, the last 2 runs you take are impressive.  nice work on all the things you wanted to improve on.  tight stance, quiet upperbody, hands in control up front.  i'd swear that looked like a real true bumper.


Pat, He was killing it that day...Just on fire!! Fun to watch.


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 25, 2007)

Greg said:


> BTW, after 20 days without a tune, many of which included some intimacy with rocks and whatnot, my skis are finally back in the shop getting some much needed base repairs and a tune...


Ha! Mine are also in the shop...BTW Greg the shop did find a problem with that binding and I might need to replace it


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## BeanoNYC (Feb 25, 2007)

Great video Greg.  I don't know how you turn those AC3's so quick.  I'm jealous.


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## Greg (Feb 25, 2007)

ALLSKIING said:


> Ha! Mine are also in the shop...BTW Greg the shop did find a problem with that binding and I might need to replace it



Really? Not surprised actually. With a DIN of 8.5, you should not have been pealing out of that binding as much as you did and when you did. You need those skis to stay ON when skiing a trail like Beast; that's for sure. Hope the Upper East Glades damage was minimal. What an adventure that was... 



BeanoNYC said:


> Great video Greg.  I don't know how you turn those AC3's so quick.  I'm jealous.



Thanks for the kind words Rich. The AC3 is a perfect ski for the conditions we had on Friday.


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## SkiFuzzzzy (Feb 25, 2007)

Hi Alpine Zoners!
I am a brand new member inspired by your visit to berkshire east a few days ago.  I actually spotted the pictures on the Beast's website, and I YouTube'd Berkshire East and you guys popped up a second time!  I went to the Beast today (2/25).  Overall, a good experience as usual.  The terrain is always great there, although some of the trails had some pretty thin cover.  The hits today were probably UMass and The Flying Cloud.  Liftline looked terrible, so did Beast and Grizzly.  Jug was a little grassy, but I skied it anyway.  The competition trails were well-groomed as usual.  I have only one question after viewing your movie and reading your comments: Don't you guys care about your bases?  Geez!  You guys must have been nailing those rocks and dirt on trails such as the Upper East Glades (Which I stayed away from!)
Okay, just felt like filling you guys in on todays conditions, also just wanted to mention as a new member with my first post: Great Site!

-Fuzzy


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 25, 2007)

SkiFuzzzzy said:


> Hi Alpine Zoners!
> I am a brand new member inspired by your visit to berkshire east a few days ago.  I actually spotted the pictures on the Beast's website, and I YouTube'd Berkshire East and you guys popped up a second time!  I went to the Beast today (2/25).  Overall, a good experience as usual.  The terrain is always great there, although some of the trails had some pretty thin cover.  The hits today were probably UMass and The Flying Cloud.  Liftline looked terrible, so did Beast and Grizzly.  Jug was a little grassy, but I skied it anyway.  The competition trails were well-groomed as usual.  I have only one question after viewing your movie and reading your comments: Don't you guys care about your bases?  Geez!  You guys must have been nailing those rocks and dirt on trails such as the Upper East Glades (Which I stayed away from!)
> Okay, just felt like filling you guys in on todays conditions, also just wanted to mention as a new member with my first post: Great Site!
> 
> -Fuzzy


Welcome Fuzzy!! Our bases took a bit of a beating but not real bad. I would usually not abuse my bases that much but it was just one of those days. Looking forward to reading more of your posts.


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## bvibert (Feb 25, 2007)

Actually, no I don't really care about my bases all that much.  If they get screwed up that what P-Tex is for.   The only trail that was real bad was upper east glades, which was practically bare.  That was more of an accidental excursion that we certainly didn't repeat.  The rest of the trails had pretty decent coverage when we were there with only a few spots of dirt and grass poking through... and the occasional rock.  My skis sure could use a tune now though. 

BTW, welcome to the site.  I hope we hear more from you.


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## threecy (Feb 26, 2007)

Lower East Glades still had decent cover yesterday, in 40 degree temps!  Dare I say spring?


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## Greg (Feb 26, 2007)

SkiFuzzzzy said:


> Hi Alpine Zoners!
> I am a brand new member inspired by your visit to berkshire east a few days ago.  I actually spotted the pictures on the Beast's website, and I YouTube'd Berkshire East and you guys popped up a second time!  I went to the Beast today (2/25).  Overall, a good experience as usual.  The terrain is always great there, although some of the trails had some pretty thin cover.  The hits today were probably UMass and The Flying Cloud.  Liftline looked terrible, so did Beast and Grizzly.  Jug was a little grassy, but I skied it anyway.  The competition trails were well-groomed as usual.  I have only one question after viewing your movie and reading your comments: Don't you guys care about your bases?  Geez!  You guys must have been nailing those rocks and dirt on trails such as the Upper East Glades (Which I stayed away from!)
> Okay, just felt like filling you guys in on todays conditions, also just wanted to mention as a new member with my first post: Great Site!
> 
> -Fuzzy



Welcome Fuzzy! Cool. I was hoping that the YouTubage would result in some people checking out the site. Re: base damage. Any real damage would have occurred on Upper East Glades which was certainly by accident. Beast was intentional and a bit rough at the top, but at least we were able to scope it out. The rest of the mountain had plenty of cover. Sure some base scratches and worn edges likely was the result, but natural snow skis sooooo much better. I love the challenge of poking around thin cover. All skis are rock skis!!!


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 26, 2007)

ALLSKIING said:


> BTW Greg the shop did find a problem with that binding and I might need to replace it


Just found out from the shop that I will be getting a new pair and the best part is its under warranty:beer:


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## Greg (Feb 26, 2007)

ALLSKIING said:


> I would usually not abuse my bases that much but it was just one of those days.



What's that supposed to mean? :blink: One of those days with a nutcase tour guide that barely knows the mountain...? :lol: Come on. It was an epic adventure! How are your legs feeling today?



ALLSKIING said:


> Just found out from the shop that I will be getting a new pair and the best part is its under warranty:beer:



Good news. See? Skiing so hard at the Beast might have been the only way that problem would have shown up so I actually did you a favor...


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## ALLSKIING (Feb 26, 2007)

Greg said:


> What's that supposed to mean? :blink: One of those days with a nutcase tour guide that barely knows the mountain...? :lol: Come on. It was an epic adventure! How are your legs feeling today?
> Leg are much better I don't think 100% though and yes it was an EPIC adventure.
> 
> 
> ...


Yep...Like you I am back on my k2 Axis.


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## Greg (Feb 26, 2007)

ALLSKIING said:


> Yep...Like you I am back on my k2 Axis.



My AC3s will be ready tomorrow. I called the shop hoping to get them for tonight, but no dice. No worries - this way they'll be fresh for Sugarbush next week. I'm curious to see how I do on the K2s in the bumps at Sundown tonight...


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