Madeline and I skied 7S this weekend. This was the first weekend that Goosebumps, Giant steps, Gunnar, and the new Yodeler trail have been open.

Saturday was a great day to be out. Awesome conditions, 30 degrees, sunny, and not too windy. Sunday was colder but refreshed fresheies all day long. The snow was nice and soft and still plentiful from the 7" that fell a few days before.

First of all Yodeler trail actually goes from top to bottom, not just half way down like I had thought before. My earlier pics only show the upper part. Yoddeler is I think a change of pace that 7S needed. The other trails are all wide open, direct down the hill and very similar. The other snaky trail, boulder is clearly man made and jsut weird. Yodeler is none of those things.

Saturday morning it was groomed out and held nice packed powder. The upper section has a dog leged entry that hints at more turns to come. This leads into a fairly respectable strech of vertical before leveling out and going to the lower sections. On the upper part there are a number of nice lines on the trail. First off a natural jump was formed at the top where it splits off from the cat track. There is plenty of landing space and you can see approaching skier so you can jump it with out spotting. The wide sweeping corner can be cut at high speed for speed freaks. However in the trough by the snow guns had collected a large amount of nice soft powder. My favorite line was to ski the trough and then take a little jump off the side of the piste into the T-neck glades and continue from there. The glades were awesome by the way. The lower section of yodeler is even more interesting with a large amount of banking on several sweeping corners that are reminiscent of another favorite of mine, stembogan trail at Blue Knob. If anything it is more fun. It isn't the most challenging trial on the north face but it complements the trail it adjacent too, lost girl and really provides a nice change of pace.

Overall the best snow of the weekend was found on the Alpine meadows glades. They received most of the snow blown off of the north face slopes. On Saturday morning the snow was plentiful, nice, light and soft, and a ton of fun to ski. I took Madeline through there and we both got to work on our soft conditions skiing.

The nicest thing about 7S this weekend was experiencing how far they can stretch a foot or so of natural snow. The natural snow trails Blitzen and Gunnar chair line were great on Saturday and still very, safely, skiable well into Sunday morning. The chariline was a real hoot and one of my new favorite runs at 7S. Not just the trails, all the slopes between pistes were completely open and skiable too. The conditions for those were unpredictable and changed throughout the day, some were blown off, other were nice and soft, some had crust or heavy crud... It was all part of the fun to find the best snow on each section. I felt like I was at laurel mountain for a while between blitzen, the chair line, the slopes, and alpine meadows. After skiing other areas in the region I have to say that no other area has this much off piste skiing available on only 12" of natural snow.

The only bad thing about the weekend was getting stuck on the NF lift from for a good 20-30 minutes due to lift malfunction.

It's been a while since I've posted here, but I have to concur with the above trip report!

I was there Sunday, after having spent the Saturday in Uniontown visiting my brother and his family! This is also the very first set of turns I got to lay down for the season.

Skiing at Seven Springs was just incredible on Sunday. Oh yea, that wind was getting brutal over there on the North Face, but even going into the afternoon, I was still able to drop down under the lift on the North Face lift. The upper part of the run under the Gunner lift was pretty scratched up and bare, so I did not attempt it. Hopefully, when I go back over Christmas, it'll be better covered.

I got on the hill around 11-ish or so and stayed and skied it until around 7:30ish or so that evening. I'd stuck around longer, but I was getting tired, plus I had to drive all the way back to Fredericksburg, VA. So, I figured I'd better quit while I am still ahead.

Later in the evening, the place was practically empty. I was finding all kinds of fresh stashes throughout the evening - especially the lower part of the Alpine glades. Nobody was skiing it, thus all kinds of good, fresh tracks to be found.

Another really cool, and fun part was there there was actually a bit of a cornice drop right onto that face underneath the lower part of the North Face lift. I was having a bit of fun skiing down off that.

I also concur about Goosebumps! The mogals where nice and powdering, but getting pretty cut up. Same with those moguls on that run that goes along the alpine glades (I forget what it is called). I was having a very difficult time getting my 183-cm Volkl 5-stars through there, so I only made but a couple runs.

Near the end of the evening, I was pretty much making some runs down Avalanche, as it was near the ski patrol building, which is where I was basing myself out of (again, awesome thanks for the patrol there for the hospitality and fixing me up with a freebie). However, it looks like I'll be making up for the free lift ticket, as when I told the patrol that I was planning on returning over Christmas, I was asked to bring my pack and jacket. So, if anybody is skiing 7-Springs the day after Christmas, look for the guy with the shoulder-length curly blond hair and the Massanutten ski-patrol jacket. That'll be me.

Also, one other interesting aspect of this day of skiing, is that this was the very first time I got to ski without the need of eyeglasses in my life. I've undergone LASIK surgery right before Thanksgiving. It was so nice to not have to deal with fogged up eyeglasses anymore! It just made the whole experience of skiing that much better for me!

But I agree - it was truly an awesome day of skiing, definitly, by far, one of my best season openers! Also, it just seems that 7 Springs skis big. For a mountain that has "only" 750 or so feet of vertical as well as "only" 32 or so runs, it just seems to ski bigger than it actually is. I guess due to the openess of the slopes and that you could just about ski it anywhere, including dropping into the woods to find some nice little powder stashes and so.

One gripe! I'll be so glad when they finally replace that friggan slow-assed lift going up Gunner's slope. Also, it would be nice if they had that part of the hill opened for night skiing, as that is definitly my favorite part to ski.

Think about this: If the slow, old Gunnar lift that serves the BEST skiing on the mountain is replaced with a high speed detachable...that will no longer be the best skiing on the mountain.

I beg to differ at least for those of us who can ski on weekdays.

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If the slow, old Gunnar lift that serves the BEST skiing on the mountain is replaced with a high speed detachable...that will no longer be the best skiing on the mountain.

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I agree wholeheartedly with that statement; also, you can reach most of the same terrain from the GIant Steps lift, although I think you might have to cut through the woods just a wee bit at the very top to reach the Turtle Glades section.