Here is my story of Ripsaw at Loon Mountain.
I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning mostly on North Peak and East Basin. At lunch I looked at the trail map and noticed there were some interesting runs over at South Peak. And what's this? A double black? At
Loon? So about 1:30 I hop on the transfer lift and head over to South.
When you ski Ripsaw, there is a long flat run to where Ripsaw itself starts, then a fairly steep run-in, a roll-over and some trees that hide whats ahead, then a short, surprisingly steep section, followed by a steep run-out and then a flat run-out, leading back to the chairlift.
So I'm cruising along making big GS turns, turn in, ski up over the roll-over and slow down to go around the people gathered on the edge, say "hey, this actually is kinda steep" (yeah, a bit of an arrogant jerk) and ski down the middle of the ice, turning to avoid a couple of people gawping from the bottom. I
nailed it.
After exploring the rest of what South has to offer, I come back to Ripsaw a liitle before 3:00. I make a chattery skid down most of the ice. Not good. Now I'm annoyed.
So I go around again. Even worse! This time I
fall on the ice and slide to the bottom. Karma is a bitch. Now I'm annoyed and angry.
Another lap. As
@Wilhelmson said, there was snow on the right edge of the trail. But that isn't really the point, is it? I go back down the middle of the ice shield. And I fall again, in the exact same spot. Now I'm annoyed and angry and humiliated.
Another lap. On the chair, I tell myself, "when your edges let go, don't just stand there like a deer in the headlights. Point 'em downhill and regain control." So back down the middle of the ice again. It wasn't pretty, but I guess it was acceptable. I think I can do better.
Another lap. Again, acceptable but not satisfactory. Now I'm not angry anymore, and only semi-humilated, but I am still annoyed.
Fortunately, I was out of time. No chance to try again and really screw up. I had to catch the transfer chair back to the other side by 3:40.
Oh yeah, that karma thing? I was twenty feet from the unload ramp when the chair stops. After a minute or two I see the lift operator pull a book off a shelf and frantically start flipping pages. He runs out of the shack, climbs the ladder to the bullwheel enclosure, comes back down, and flips more pages. Not good. An older guy arrives on a snowmobile. He talks to the liftie. Another guy arrives on a snowmobile. One of them takes off up the hill. He comes back.
By now patrol has arrived, talks to us and tells us it is an electrical problem. Sit tight, don't do anything stupid, and will maintenance will figure it out. I ask the guy on the chair near me going the other way if he can see anybody else on the lift. He says he can't. I joke that maybe patrol will consider the four of us near this end as acceptable losses. He laughs, says he knows a bunch of people on patrol, and if they knew it was him they
definitely would consider it acceptable.
Sure enough, they did get the lift running after about 15 more minutes. Oh well, I had activity to watch, it was sunny, no wind, and the temperature had warmed up to the high teens. Could have been a lot worse.
Usually with any sort of Pug gathering I'm the last one down and the search and rescue parties are being organized.
