The Skimeister and I hit the trails at Smugglers' Notch this morning. The Sterling Lift was open and it served trails both with and without snowmaking.
This was typical December skiing. Fast, hard-packed snow on the busy snowmaking trails, and better snow — along with grass and rocks — on the less-traveled natural snow trails. (We really need to find our edging tool to get our edges sharp!)
My favorite runs were on the natural snow trails where I could find some smooth snow and small moguls as I picked my way down the trail. I enjoyed Upper Treasure Run and Thomke's.
Upper Rumrunner, Lower Rumrunner and Lower Treasure run had the most traffic, but early in the morning I enjoyed making fast swooping turns when I had plenty of room on Lower Rumrunner.
Despite warmer temperatures than yesterday, the wind was quite chilly. However, the morning was mostly clear so we had great views of the surrounding hills, Mt. Mansfield and even Jay Peak.
It's snowing now and the forecast shows snowflakes for the middle of this week. Keep it comin'!
