Riding the Royal Powder Carpet

There are two wolves inside me. One wants to grow snow riding. Add stoke. Support locally owned mountains that are lifebloods in their communities. The other wants to throw all that out the window on a powder day.

Royal Mountain, overlooked by some, has been getting widespread attention with recent weather events. Royal is less than an hour down the road from me, and I’ve made it make it a habit to ride there every season. In late April 2022 I caught a very late spring storm and last year Jake Tennis gave us the scoop on the new trail The Red Carpet.

When I pulled up last Saturday I was hyped to see a great little mountain getting the attention it deserves.

I also wanted all that powder to myself. It seemed fitting to be back at Royal, grabbing first chair for an inaugural run down the Red Carpet. Harv and I lined up for the chair at 8:30 and we were fifth. I chirped with some locals who mentioned they had never seen it this busy before lifts started spinning.

The lift went early, at 8:45 we were making our way up. We debated our first run, but when the folks ahead of us went left we went straight down the face. It was creamy, dreamy and completely untracked. The new Red Carpet is very much an Adirondack trail with boulders and rocks making waves under 22 inches of new snow.

I floated through the open snow and bounced over every little drop. It will be one of those lines that’s on replay in my head for the rest of the reason.

The next run we dipped into Gladed Wench before riding back on to Royal. There’s a boulder drop halfway down the run, I came in a little hot without scoping it out and sent it to powder below. No injuries, just laughs and a good way to measure snow depth. Next it was Harvey’s turn.

I know my free-heeling, tele skiing, editor in chief likes him some floaty lower angle glades. The Maiden and Princess glades were absolutely prime, but Gladed Jacksland really hit the spot. We lapped these trees multiple times, each time taking a little bigger slice of pie getting fresh lines. I know it’s good when I hear Harvey singing in the woods.

At this point it was time to make a decision on lunch. The lift lines were “long” but we were still getting fresh lines on every run. We decided to skip the meal and power through. Instead we went to Gladed Jester for lunch. It was unreal that this late in the day we could still find untracked snow.

Remember to exit right, back on to Challenge otherwise you need to ride just left of the ski shack to catch a bridge over the ditch. We watched one unfortunate soul ski too far left and straight into the wall of snow on the other side. Thankfully he was laughing at his mistake as he trudged out of a waist deep snow bank.

We decided on one last deep run into Gladed Wench. By now it was getting tracked out but coverage was still excellent with the occasional deep pile of snow left on the sides. We made our way into the packed lodge where Brooke and Jake Tennis were still slinging lift tickets with big smiles.

Jake told us the long term plan to open the Red Carpet was thrown out the window with such great conditions and progress ahead of schedule. They decided to open it up and send it, a great choice.

Jake asked us how conditions were and if the slopes were too crowded. Every chair was full but the slopes were uncrowded with plenty of space. It may have been the busiest day of the season but you wouldn’t know when you are on the slopes. He manages chair lift speed to maintain skier density and slope conditions.

Just keep doing what you’re doing Jake. Anywhere a fixed grip lift is servicing lake effect powder, we will be there.