After skiing Laurel’s Broadway nonstop over 2 days the family decided to hit Seven Springs. The Springs had backside North Face and Gunnar for their black diamond offerings along with the always popular the Alley terrain park. Lost Boy easiest from the top was open as well as Sunset (Nastar race course) all served by North Face Quad and the Gunnar HS 6. The front side Wagner-Stowe-Tyrol-Avalanche-Boomerang-Fawn-Philips and 2 top side terrain parks served by the Polar HS 6 and the Tyrol and Avalanche triple. Even the Blitzen triple was running serving Alpine Meadows, Deer Pass, North Face et.al.
There is nice acreage of machine made available at Seven Springs on this day. However, last night it was groomed wet and set up as frozen cord that only polished out and never soften as the day went on. It was wicked fast and a day for sharp edges. Fortunately for me I was on a pair of freshly tuned Volkl Mantra M5 demos from Peak Ski and Board, Gibsonia, PA. The Mantra has been in the Volkl line up forever with a reputation of solid hard snow performance despite its 96 mm girth. This year’s version garnered the “Gear of the Year” award from Ski magazine. The 177 I skied are 134-96-117, 19.8m radius, rocker-camber-rocker. It has a titanal metal frame along the outer edges, hollow in the middle. This is not an ultralight ski. On the frozen cord and Ice we skied all day, this ski just railed. Set an edge and go, easy to change direction, stable and smooth. despite the constant scraping and grating sound of metal on ice or what we ’round here call, “hardpack”.
We mostly bombed the backside skiing Gunnar most often but my son caught an adequate dose of the Alley and we hit the ice ring otherwise known as North Face a few times. We never really touched the front side except to return to the lodge. I was surprised that they were able to blow a little snow on the summit trails. There was a nice size weekday crowd there today. Day rate was $67.
