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Mid-Atlantic Laurel Mountain Jan. 17

Laurel Hill Crazie

AKA Rob Davis
Skier
Joined
Nov 13, 2015
Posts
1,264
Location
Keystone State
Great day on Wednesday Jan.17. Cold as heck but little wind. Half the mountain in a cloud of snowmaking and the other half intermittent clouds down to Lower Broadway. Whales everywhere, soft and deep in the troughs but hard carvable up and over the whales, great time. Most natural snow areas required a wide board and light touch. A total disregard for your bases is also helpful.

Lower Broadway Jan 17

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Renegade snowmobilers tore up Dream Highway exposing rock and stone on the run out so we didn’t ski it. We need to get some work done there.* Snowmobiles made some ruts on the Broadway whales too. Damn criminal. State Park has been notified. Violators will be prosecuted. Laurel Run and Snow Bowl were in the fog all day, Laurel had some powder on the edges when I skied it late morning but visibility was bad. I did not ski Snow Bowl. Lincoln had some untracked as did Doc’s Forest. I made some really nice turns there. We skied ski Hagen’s Cut a few times.

Wildcat was under the guns all day with visibility a challenge on top of the variable snow. You found every thing from 6 inches of semi dry mix with blow away machine made…it was a high of 8 degrees that day. Upper Wildcat, skiers right, the old T-bar line had heavy velvet, like frosting on a cake.. Skiers left on Lower, in the clear 15 foot wide visibility corridor, was a strange brew of chopped up natural and machine beads, the whales down the middle were huge and very agreeable to edging. The machine made snow bounced off your jacket except for that one gun at the bottom that sprayed wet and crystalize upon goggle lens impact.

The lodge was cozy, the staff friendly as always. Kudos to the chair attendants. Each was engaged and never did a chair whack my legs.

I took a few runs with Laurel Mountain/Linn Run Park Manager Doug Finger and his daughter. We again learned the age old eastern skiing lesson; There is good snow then there is good for you snow. This was a day of challenging conditions, changing surfaces, very flat light but down the swells of rolling Broadway, heeding Ishmael’s call. ”I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” We stalked the great white whales.

On the chair ride up we talked about the Midway Cabin project. Midway is state park asset. The original 1940 ski lodge was stabilized. Fundraising efforts are being investigated with the aim of restoring this historic structure. At least for now, the structure is safe.

Tomorrow promises to be one of the best days. The natural, such as it is, might be gone early so get there if you can.

* This past off-season members of "Support Laurel Mountain State Park" and Linn Run/Laurel Mountain State Park employees organized 4 State Park Volunteer Days and restored a glade first cut 50 years ago by former LM CEO Ralph “Doc” DesRoches, US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Famer and US Army Tenth Mountain veteran. The tree run empties right above Midway Cabin, Laurel Mountain's original ski lodge built in 1940.
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