Last week I managed to sneak back to Richmond and got my Wintergreen fix taken care of. Since that pesky need to earn a living got in the way I had to confine my activities to Monday and Wed. evenings. Some observations:

On both nights I rented gear and they had my information on file which made it easy with no paperwork. I got some ancient Head boots, which if you have been to WTG you know the ones I mean. But they must have changed out the liners because they were in very good shape. Both my friend and I were a little surprised at how light the rental skis were. It took me a couple of runs to get used to them but they were freshly waxed and not bad after that. He on the other hand is a big guy and usually skis some heavyweight Atomic D2s. He was never completely comfortable with the lighter ski but given the terrain that was available it was not a huge problem.


Monday night was empty as the holiday crowds had departed. The snow was pretty cut up but due to the more or less steady temps throughout the day and into the evening it was not icy or rutted. Even the bottom of Sunrise which is usually good for an ice fix was in pretty good shape. All of that went to you know where in a handbasket at about 9pm when it got very windy and started blowing away the top layer of snow...but I was done by then.

Wed. I dragged my sometimes Hungarian visitor over there. He always enjoys a trip to Wintergreen even though he has easy access to great skiing in Austria and Slovenia. That plus he has a fondness for the beers at the Devils Backbone Brewery.

I expected ice due to the warmer daytime temps followed by the rapid temp drop and I got it. However, they were making dry snow and as the night wore on, it actually improved conditions as it covered many of the icy spots. Eagles Swoop and Sunrise were fun but I hate tequilla at night because it always gets slick right at the trail merge sign where you need to check uphill on Sunrise. Neither one of us could find a line down Acorn that we were comfortable with so we gave up on that. Other than those two issues conditions were pretty good. The only dissapointment was the Blue Ridge Express had some sort of fault they were diagnosing so while the lift was running the lower part of Diamond and Dobie were closed. This reduced a little variety but more important left us to ride up on the triple whenever we crossed over from the A-side.

All in all not bad for night time skiing in the Mid-Atlantic and it was good to ski at Wintergreen again.