Today was great for scratching that itch if ya know what I mean.
Rolled in at 9am on the dot greeted by a long line of cars backed up on 28 and continuing up Galli Curci. Culprit for the traffic, everyone rubbernecking a Tesla with Jersey plates buried into a snowbank just below the lower lot that looked like it had spent the night there. We got down to the gondi from midway and were pretty disheartened to see what was the longest line at opening I've seen all year. Talking with someone on the first ride up he told us they didn't start loading until nearly 9:20 causing a backlog. Fortunately the gondi line looked like this for the rest of the day.
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Crowds seemed heavy based on parking but once on trail it never felt too overwhelming. On piste fresh ran great for the first three or so laps after which the wet dense settled in making for some pretty sketchy mounds across all of the steeps and their run outs. The snow over all was the weirdest combo of sticky and fast, when you were slow it didn't do you any favors but once you got going it felt really slick and fast yet still very easy to edge into. I got to poking around a bit and found the woods the best place to be, everything was in play, creeks covered and the snow so dense you never sunk in far enough for a core shot. Boards and anyone on fat skis definitely had the upper hand in the untracked as the ability to stay on top pretty much unlocked everything.
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I'm not typically one to gripe much about lift line management but they were blowing it down at Belleayre Express today. Lines were longer for that lift than the gondi the entire day and the lifties seemed incapable of building full chairs. I don't exclusively blame them for the issue, honestly I've never seen so many people having such a hard time boarding a lift. There did however seem to be an issue where they were pulling groups from their respective lines too soon not giving adequate time for the people in front to clear the corral causing multiple groups to get broken up at or soon after the gate making for a whole mess. Enough bitching though because the woods really did make up for it and I'm glad to finally have a day this season to remind me why I like Catskill hardwood glades so much.
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On the ride home a friend who was up at Platty gave me a call to recap our days, sounded like a busy one up there too and I'm happy Laz was able to pull in a crowd. We both theorized that Vails mismanagement of Hunter has got to be driving people to both Belle and Platt based on what we saw today and conversations we had with other skiers and riders.
