I skied Blue Knob today after 10" fresh the day before. It snowed all day until around 5 PM when the sun came out and it turned crystal clear for a nice afternoon and sunset.
Between the snow and the high winds, I was hitting some trails, and coming back 3 runs later to find my tracks gone.
They had obviously had that rain they were talking about earlier in the week -- the base was pretty thin in many places and it was clear that the 10" of pow made the difference between great and absolutely terrible conditions.
Even so there was thinner cover in the glades and on the narrow trails than just last week. Ditch Glades is effectively closed as the bottom half is now a creek (to my surprise!). Bone Yard / Mine Shaft were much thinner than last week and not recommended. Triple and Forever were still nice.
Stembogan was awesome. The winds were causing powder to collect right under the lip of the bowl making for some hero "floating" turns in the deep pow.
Extrovert was powder with ice underneath, though very enjoyable.
Lower Shortway was closed but had fantastic deep powder on 80% of it's length. (All but the steep part near the end that doesn't hold snow well and gets rocky). Had me grinning each time I skied it, but each trip took a little more out of my ski bases.
All-in-all an excellent day. Low crowds too, which I just don't understand -- how can there be low crowds on a Saturday in the Mid Atlantic after a foot of fresh powder has fallen? Surely nobody is "thinking spring" when it's 20 degrees out.
