Conditions: Firm up top until noonish, soft up top later, soft spring like at base all day

Trip Report:

Using our Fox 44 cards we sought to get this trip is before the season ended. Our initial concern was the wet weather the day before and temps dropping to freezing or near freezing by morning so we opted for a little later start and got there around 9:30. The lodge and parking lot was pretty empty and there were no lift lines to speak of.

We made our way from Sherburne Lodge up the Quad to traverse that flat run out to Mid Burke Express. I wish there was something they could to to make that stretch a little better. It is only a once or twice per day thing so not a big deal since the whole day is spent skiing the upper pod. Once to the Summit, we notice that the conditions were pretty hard and as we headed down Deer Run, the edges (sharpened two weeks ago) were not helping a whole lot and we decided to proceed with caution. The bottom section was much better and ran really well. It is a very simple trail but I like to run it and crank the turns. Towards the bottom we took Y-Knot and the snow there was already soft and the bumps a bit tricky because the snow seemed to thick. We thought we should try a tree run a little higher up to get something not quite so soft. We ended up skiing cruisers (Willoughby, PowderHorn, Bear Den, Fox’s Folly, Warrens Way, Rerun, and Upper Dipper) until lunch. The only issue i had was the section where Big Dipper was closed due to races. They left a relatively narrow section at the bottom of Upper Dipper that dumped us onto Powderhorn, that narrow section was really scraped off (or frozen PP) if you came too fast it caught you off guard. While the kids and my wife went to the Tamarack for lunch I too a final run down Doug’s Drop over to McHarg’s Cut-off. While the bumps on Doug’s Drop were just right (not too firm and not too soft) and skied very well (few dark spots), McHarg’s Cut-off was really soft and the bump pattern kind of odd. I could not find rhythm there. Speaking of rhythm, Rerun under the chair was nicely setup with smaller bumps and the bump rhythm was really easy to turn on.

After lunch we decided to try Throbulator which was great at the very top but about mid way down the snow started to soften up a lot and the untracked snow of the side was thick and I found it hard to ski in (my wife sunk in it like quicksand). There were a few bare spots but nothing to really worry about. We then tried Caveman which was about the same where it started of with the right conditions but further down it soften up almost to much for my liking. I liked the bump pattern on Caveman a little better. After those two runs it was time to say good-bye to Mid Burke Lodge with a visit to the bar and a toast to memories of the past! My graduation party for LSC was held there!

After a couple of adult beverages we lapped Fox’s Folly, Upper Warrens Way and Warrens Way several times. It was fast and skied really nice. That is one of my favorite cruising combo’s there. Our last run was down the Willoughby trails then back to SherBurne Lodge.

Over all, it was just about as good of a spring skiing day as we could wish for. Clouds keep the snow fairly fast and coverage was perfect everywhere.

I noticed that they close off the MTB section
photo 1.JPG

Rerun
photo 2.jpg

McHarg’s Cut-off
photo 3.jpg

Throbulator
photo 4.jpg

Throbulator
photo 5.jpg