Date(s) Skied: 3/19/06

Conditions: Freshies !!

Trip Report: Darn nice day. Chose South for Variety, and heard a few of my North favorites were just miserable (FIS, to start...). Grabbed one of the first Super Bravo chairs....8am....surprised there wasn't a thundering horde of skiers looking for freshies....the higher up you went, the more snow there was, culminating with a good 6-10 at LP's upper reaches, with pockets MUCH deeper (read on for the tree report)...but I digress, and I hopped off super bravo ready to roll, hitting Murphy Glade for a freshie filled run....a bit solid underneath, with the occassional really slippery ice wake up call. Run 2 was Domino to Lower Jester....powdery and sweet. Run three was a mistake....hitting snowball to hit twist (closed) or Moonshine (closed) then making toothpicks in Eden glade....simply no base. Basically a write off.

Hopped on the lift and skied Domino again to Heaven Gate....folks already waiting, but as a single I hit the second chair when they dropped the gate. First run a beauty on Ripcord to Spillsville. I saw a patroller hitting Spillsville on the way up....just sweet looking pow bumps. Ripcord bumps were loaded with pow, but really icy underneath. Tricky, actually, despite a good near foot of pow. Second run was Paradise....very nice, less icy bumps (natural base, perhaps), and it played well. Third run was Organgrinder, skiers left....and the Tree madness began.

Trails were already getting pretty well tracked, so I just looked, saw, tested, and, well, it felt like conquered. Line after line from tree pod to tree pod, with all unnamed except one run I think I was on a section of Lew's line near the bottom. But generally I was not on named spots...and won't describe where in more detail, though I'm sure none of this stuff I hit was anywhere near Top Secret. The amount of snow in the trees was just fantastic....I'd say a good 8" to drifted 16", and in this area of the mountain, up higher, the base was A-ok (though I understand not historically very deep - obviously given this year). As a MRG passholder, and loving that place, I had perhaps conveniently forgotten how darn nice SB's tree skiing is.....just superbly excellent!!!!

Popped about 5 or 6 now blending together Heaven's gate accessed tree runs, hooking up about three times with small groups. One boarder guy about my age was peeing above a sweet untracked line and I came upon him, having followed him down, and I stopped and sheepishly said I felt bad but hit the line because it had 3 or more good takes....and we rode up after. Finally getting tired I did a Jester downhill to the base where they were sending home made sled things off a huge kicker with a crowd, and decited to hit gate house and north lynx. NL liftline was closed, and bummer, Sunrise, though I don't know why. But cut into the liftline (Morningstar ?) about 200 yards down off the trail to the left when you exit NL lift, and had freshies on marginal base all the way down to the lift load area. Popped that twice, raged a nice GS down Hotshot, waterfall, hotshot, and called it a day about 2pm. Freaking sweet day at the bush.

Sweet report! While many ski areas around NE seem to be closing the majors in northern Vt seem to be doing fine. Except for the Rock and a few other trails the Bush is still 80% open.

Great report! The reason for Sunrise to be clsoed was it was almost all brown, last week. Looked really sweet today! And Morning Star sounds like it was better, too.