# Pat's Peak 1/7/11



## deadheadskier (Jan 7, 2011)

*Date(s) Skied: * Friday, January 7th, 2011

*Resort or Ski Area: * Pat's Peak

*Conditions: * Mid 20s, no wind, flurries, excellent man made snow surfaces

*Trip Report: *

I had scheduled this Friday off awhile back to get in a 3 day weekend of skiing.  Tomorrow I'll be hitting Pico, Sunday, Okemo.  I planned on just hitting Ragged on my way over to VT for the weekend.  I wasn't too excited about that knowing there would be no bumps and no glades open.  After seeing gmcunnis pictures from a recent trip of the bumps on Hurricane at Pat's Peak, I decided to put Pat's on my radar.  Monday AZ race crew said they looked icy and solid.  However, they didn't groom it throughout the week and made snow on it.  So, liftopia ticket in hand, off I went today.

Got there late morning to a reasonably empty parking lot.  I booted up and proceeded to ski the blacks in succession from skiers right to skiers left of the mountain.  The groomers were excellent, though taking a 7 minute lift ride up to bomb down 600 feet of vert to a long runout in a minute would've have gotten old fast.  That's why I think having a run like Hurricane at Pats is so great.  Having just 1 600 vert run of good bumps is all a mogul skier needs to keep themselves entertained.  The bumps on Hurricane were natural, solid, but very edgeable; no ice, just a perfect coating of an inch or so of man made.  There wasn't enough man made to make them super soft, but not once did I hit any ice. Very few people had skied it nor would throughout the day.  Well, except for me.  After sampling all of the groomers and a cruise through the park, I lapped Hurricane strait until my ticket expired at 4.

Looking up pretty much the whole length of the bumps on Hurricane







A bit closer up






Always a lot of bickering on this forum as to what's better, seeded bumps or naturally formed.  They are completely different and both completely awesome for different reasons.  These being natural bumps lacked extended zippers to let it rip much longer than 5-6 bumps.  There were a few sections of this in the middle of the trail.  The variability of the natural bumps combined with the 'whale' areas is what made it super fun.  Lots of line adjustments and then blind drop offs from the 'whale' areas.  What I really dug the most about Hurricane was the super deep base in the center of the trail created a cool double fall line towards the lift.  Ripping down the double fall line and then making a big 'mandatory GS turn'  back to the center is what I had the most fun doing today.  In each run, you could do that about 5 times over the course of the pitch.

Picture of that fall line:






Around 1:00 the place started getting busy with elementary school kids.  Apparently there are a lot of school programs in the area where the kids get a half day on Friday and spend their afternoon at the mountain learning to ski and board.  Around 2:30 the high school students started showing up and as soon as the liftlines started to build, they fired up the other two summit lifts.  Both the FIS race trail and Twister were taken offline for races around 3:00.

I was really loving the skiing and somewhat bummed that my ticket expired at 4, but the place turned into a total zoo around that time.  So, I had a beer in the bar and split up to VT.  I overheard they were expecting 33 buses for the evening.    






Zoo of kids at dusk






Looking up at the hill from the bar deck at the end of the day






Just a killer afternoon of skiing.  Any bump skier would've loved it.  Who would think that after skiing Sunday River a couple of times, Kton a couple of times, Ragged and Gunstock, that little ole' Pat's Peak would provide me my best day of the season so far.


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## zinger3000 (Jan 7, 2011)

Nice TR and pics



deadheadskier said:


> Little ole' Pat's Peak would provide me my best day of the season so far.



Sometimes smaller is better.


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## deadheadskier (Jan 7, 2011)

Indeed

I'm a big fan of smaller areas


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## thetrailboss (Jan 7, 2011)

Nice TR. Thanks! You know, a lot of folks forget about the smaller hills including Pat's, but as a passholder there for two seasons I can say that it is legit as are those blacks (well, for Southern New Hampshire at least). They have great snowmaking, great grooming, older but good lifts (Vortex is a FAST double that is good on the weekends), and awesome service. I am glad to hear that you had a good day. Oh yeah...the pub is nice as well!

Hurricane is a nice run and I wish that they had lights on it when I was there.  It serves up some nice double fall line as you noted.  

You need to ski those two liftlines...they are fun when there is snow!




deadheadskier said:


> Looking up at the hill from the bar deck at the end of the day
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## deadheadskier (Jan 7, 2011)

I was eyeing those liftlines.  they looked great

no doubt the blacks are legit.  I can think of a few 2000 vert mountains that don't have something as steep as Hurricane over that length


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## thetrailboss (Jan 7, 2011)

You'd be amazed at how little traffic the black diamonds do get.  Most folks, as you see, are school groups and beginner skiers and they stick to the greens and blues.


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## St. Bear (Jan 7, 2011)

deadheadskier said:


> Always a lot of bickering on this forum as to what's better, seeded bumps or naturally formed. .



Really?  I hadn't noticed.


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## deadheadskier (Jan 7, 2011)

St. Bear said:


> Really?  I hadn't noticed.


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## roark (Jan 7, 2011)

glad you enjoyed it, pats is a great place and well run. Funny, I'm always showing up just as all those schoolkids are leaving


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## Edd (Jan 7, 2011)

33 buses?  Did you fat-finger that and mean 3?


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## roark (Jan 7, 2011)

nope. 33 does sound high but 3 is definitely low. typically pass 4-5 just on the access road up on the way to race. Easily a dozen+ there every time I race.


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## roark (Jan 7, 2011)

anybody know what's up with the surface lift lookers left of the vertigo chair? A little bummed, that section was always fun on a powder day...


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## Edd (Jan 7, 2011)

roark said:


> nope. 33 does sound high but 3 is definitely low. typically pass 4-5 just on the access road up on the way to race. Easily a dozen+ there every time I race.



My god.  I'm so crowd-phobic I've never imagined this as a possibility.


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## roark (Jan 7, 2011)

Edd said:


> My god.  I'm so crowd-phobic I've never imagined this as a possibility.


then i would not recommend the hours of 3-6 on a weekday. still not nearly as bad as stratton, loon, okemo, sunday river, snow etc on a weekend. Except maybe in the lodge. :lol:


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## thetrailboss (Jan 8, 2011)

roark said:


> anybody know what's up with the surface lift lookers left of the vertigo chair? A little bummed, that section was always fun on a powder day...


 
They added that either last summer or the one before for the terrain park features that they put there.  I agree that was a nice stretch of trail for pow.


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## Smellytele (Jan 8, 2011)

My home mountain that keeps me entertained when I can't get out and about. A lot of hidden gems like those lift lines in deep snow  - Hurricane glades and other more hidden that i can't/won't mention here.  Glad you had fun.


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## deadheadskier (Jan 9, 2011)

Edd said:


> 33 buses?  Did you fat-finger that and mean 3?



Maybe she said 23 instead of 33.  In the photo in the Trip Report there are 7 buses right there and there were another 5 down in the lower lot.  

Definitely a madhouse at night, but nice and quiet during the day


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## reefer (Jan 9, 2011)

Great report! May have to make an appearance up there one of these days. That picture of Hurricane from the lift is awesome, that run would keep me occupied.


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## bobbutts (Jan 10, 2011)

Yep, didn't take you long to reach the same conclusions as me.. I'm skipping the Pat's pass this year, but have had it the last 3 previous years.  I usually take Hurricane 1 out of every 2 runs, otherwise % of time on the lift is just too high.  The cruisers are fun too, just over too fast.
Crowds aren't too bad, more bark than bite, the two extra chairs never get much of a line and hurricane never gets crowded.


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## roark (Jan 10, 2011)

bobbutts said:


> Yep, didn't take you long to reach the same conclusions as me.. I'm skipping the Pat's pass this year, but have had it the last 3 previous years. I usually take Hurricane 1 out of every 2 runs, otherwise % of time on the lift is just too high. The cruisers are fun too, just over too fast.
> Crowds aren't too bad, more bark than bite, the two extra chairs never get much of a line and hurricane never gets crowded.


Yeah, crowds are really only an issue for the ~3hrs the kids are there, and that's mostly in the lodge :lol:

Hurricane keeps the race team occupied (nothing like bumps on stiff skis!) as well. Ironically, what draws me to Pats (racing) is what keeps me from considering coming any other night (that Twister and FIS are pretty much always closed to the public M-Th).


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## 4aprice (Jan 10, 2011)

You are so dead on DHS of the importance of moguls on Mts the size of Pats Peak.  The groomers are great but the yo-yoing can get tedious at times.  Throw in a nice mogul field and it adds a little pizzaz to the the mountain and really makes it worthwhile.  Its something that keeps the smaller mountains (like Pat's , Sundown and the Pocono's )entertaining.

Alex

Lake Hopatcong, NJ


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