Here are some pics from today at Wisp. I am going ahead and putting them up for Andy. Please remember that I am no photographer, I use the a cheap old digi cam for fishing and skiing (it is a tank), and the conditions sucked for pics. I will try to write a little bit later.

looked like some cold fun to me! Those pics ain't so bad.. I felt like I could just jump into that 1st one & head on down... was that the front face?.. I bet it didn't get out of the upper teens...Tomorrow will be real nice up there..You got an excuse to go...got to find your Bejimmis!

Today was a pretty good day of skiing, despite the cold temps, frigid winds, and constant onslaught of snowmakers. The snow in most places was pretty nice to ski on, as there was a new layer added every hour or so by the snowmakers. Some places did get pretty icey though. There weren't too many people there, which was a plus.


We skied Wisp Trail from the top on our first run and decided then that it was a bad idea. The entire trail had snowblowers on it from top to bottom, which made for some messy goggles. We skied Squirrel Cage a few times, but it got icey real fast at the the top. We spent most of the day on The Face, as the snow on right side was actually some nice man-made pow (lack of a better word). I was even able to make several runs in the trees in the far left side (right next to The Face) of Devils Drop (pictured above).

All in all I must say that it was a good first day of the season. I was very impressed with the amount of snow that Wisp was blowing the entire time I was there. About a week ago Brad said that he noticed they took the tower guns down on Squirrel Cage and put in Polecats. He was wrong. As you can see from the picture, they put Polecats in between EVERY tower gun up the entire slope. Today they were blowing out of every Polecat and about half of the tower guns. I thought that was pretty cool.

Thanks for pics and info David. How much natural did they have on the ground, excluding snowmaking? Looks like just a few inches? Did they have any trails in North Camp or Mainstreet open?

Mainstreet was closed. North Camp was open but we only skied down the the middle lift and went back up because of the painful ride through the snow wands. As for natural snow (forgot to mention that part), it didn't really look like they got a whole lot. I would say probably no more than 3-4 inches at best. This was in the least exposed area I could find in the woods. It was hard to tell for sure though because the wind was crazy and was carrying snow everywhere.

Nice report and pictures, thanks!

Yeah I would go up and try to find em but I'll be in the city tomorrow thru thursday. Tons of fun

I hope I can get up there soon before they get completely covered for the season. I don't know if I can wait until the Spring thaw to get my Bejimmis back..

Great photos and report, David! Thanks for the information.

A friend of mine is skiing Wisp today, and a few of us hope to join him on Wednesday. Seems that temps will be cold enough at night for snowmaking but Weds should be warm enough to keep snowmaking down during the day.

Woody

thanks for the pictorial stokage david! knowing people are skiing when I'm working is a little bit of a bummer, but heck, its not even "winter" until saturday

i saw some other places making snow all day yesterday too. speaking of snowmaking.. do all places have the ability to make snow when temps are above 32? I heard there is some chemical or something that can be added to be able to do that... ??

There is something called "Snomax" that can accelerate snow formation from guns (I believe it's a protein that aids in nucleation). However, weather factors ultimately control the rest, and it boils down to the wet bulb temperature (which reflects the effect of humidity and temperature). It can be above 32F ambient temperature as long as the wet bulb temperature is below 32F. The farther wet bulb drops below 32F, the better the quality of snow. Snow made near 32F wet bulb would be rather marginal.