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Spirit Mountain 2019/20


rwmaron

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Another 1½-2" of snow over a (finally) soft groom--no ice, no crust, just beautiful plush groom where one easily makes bona fide trenches 2-3" deep.

Within 30 minutes of opening it was busier than it was all day yesterday--it's home-school Friday. Still, great carving was had on fluff over groom. Rode for 3 hours under overcast sky with on & off light snowfall.

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Bright overcast--a hint that the sun is still up there somewhere. Saturday crowds made it a short day today. Started out on the 185 8rw and switched to the 171 xc after about an hour. First day in a while where I had to make evasive maneuvers to avoid traffic. I'm getting spoiled. Nice groom with some softer areas making for some deep trenches.

Three race practice courses on the sides of Gandy, Blue Ruin and CinderSnapper. With such soft groom, a lot of the runs over there were trenched up pretty good by the ski racers, although nothing like what RTTC does to Buck Hill. Took a few runs through the park on untouched groom before leaving. There was some aerial practice going on there, so really had to look up. 

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Started out with a hint of sun through overcast, light becoming flat and then light snow. Surface was very firm "Minnesota groom". Started out on the 185 8rw and switched to the 175 Super when the light went flat and finished out the day on the Rev 175 with an iso-plate. Never got crowded, no lines--rode with boarder patrollers, Russ & Don til 3pm--legs depleted.

We're all dying to see the sun again someday...

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Shoulda brought the camera--there was some sun and blue sky today! :1luvu: No crowds, softer snow than yesterday--I'm pretty sure when we make deep trenches one day, we force the groomer to till deeper to erase our tracks, thus giving us a plusher groom the following day. I will try to keep pushing the groomers to do a better job, but I could use some help here--can't do it all myself.:eplus2:

I didn't last more than a couple of hours today after riding 5 hours yesterday. I'm still trying to learn moderation in retirement.

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Started out with overcast and flat light, then gradually more & more sun started peeking through the clouds. According to Weather Updraft, this January has been the cloudiest in the past 60 years. I think we've seen the sun twice in the past month!:ph34r:

But this afternoon...glorious intermittent sunshine...and fresh groom in the big air park...Here's Russ defacing the park...

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2 hours ago, bigwavedave said:

 

But this afternoon...glorious intermittent sunshine...and fresh groom in the big air park...Here's Russ defacing the park...

Consistently the sweetest groom at Spirit...skier's left through the Big Air park. In past years it's been cluttered with various bits of flotsam and jetsam (for the jibber crowd) but this year it's fairly wide open.....just stay on your line or you'll risk getting launched! 😎

 

 

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Out for 2½ hours this morning. Started out at 38°F with some sun, then overcast, then some sun again and wind. Snow was getting sticky, but the groom was nice and soft for trenchin'.

There was another carver on the hill--black board, green circular logo on the bottom?--never linked up with him.

paths that cross...

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....and Jane was there too!

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Well, after a couple of warm days, we're back to a crusty, frozen "surface groom" over gravely ice. At least it was sunny with a deep blue sky and temps in the single digits °F. Even the park had only one fresh groomer pass where an edge could penetrate.

Even my metal board made a horrific noise as I traversed the hill trying to hold an edge.:eek: It was a rough ride.

Looks can be deceiving. The 1st track...

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Much softer conditions today:1luvu: Sunny, starting out with single digit temps and quickly warming up to near freezing in the afternoon. The ice is still under there, just takes a few passes before the surface groom starts breaking up and revealing it. Things are still hard over on the Gandy side, except for the park where we finished off the day slicing up some sweet zipper groom.

Rode from 10-2:30, much of the time with Russ and Mike, a softboot carver we hope to convert. Forgot my camera, but maybe we'll see some pics from the photographer we buzzed on the hill today. Suspect he was taking promotional pics for Spirit.

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Aaah, awoke in a snow globe with giant fluffy flakes piling up. Looking at the weather radar showed it to be a localized lake-effect carried by NE wind off Superior.  2+ inches over a crunchy groom (must have warmed up above freezing yesterday) on the hill and still snowing when I left. Gonna be nice tomorrow! :1luvu: We needed some new snow.

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5 PM update: Another inch and still snowing.  4+" of dry fluffy snow so far today.  NE wind veering SW later tonight will shut down lake-effect snow.

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Man, that ice base is still under there within reach of a 2" deep carve. Sunny day, so I drove around to the top to get the 1st track, and there was already a single line laid down. Turned out to be a woman who carves pretty nice with a softboot setup. Told her we might have a hardboot setup for her to try. @rwmaron , do we know where those small Oxygen boots are?

Rode for a few hours. College team racing over on BlueRuin, so Gandy was pretty carved up from warm-up runs, almost as good as RTTC at Buck. Took a few runs in the park just to feel what a turn feels like without bottoming out on a gravely ice base. 

3rd day in a row that the orange-jacket photographer was out shooting Spirit promo photos for next year. I stopped and got his info as I have been buzzing him everyday hoping to get a good photo. 

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Out for a few hours this morning. Flat light to start and then some sun. Gandy and BlueRuin had race courses, and fat bikes on JugglerJoe. Still finding nice groom under the express chair and in the deserted, untracked park. Met a college racer riding an old Rossi Throttle, and ran into Leighton riding his OES.

Over on the race courses, skiers scraped off the inch or so of "surface groom" to reveal the true secret of the Spirit ice base. There's a nice washboard-like groomer tread imprint in the ice that produces that lovely vibratory sensation when carving.:freak3:  Hard to complain though, after seeing @lonbordin 's pics of Paoli.

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@rwmaron Thinking about a trip over to Indianhead for some soft groom. Maybe Tuesday. I've heard the water tastes like wine.

 

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Tuesday, February 11

While BWD was off in the land of milk and honey (where the water tastes like wine) us poor plebeians had to make do with what we had.....flat light early, then filtered sunlight later in the day......the very firm Minnesota groom over a rock hard icy base......

But Leighton was out on his OES board doing his skateboarding cross-over thing.....Patroller Don logged a couple more hours in his new boots on Dave's old Incline......Jane was still working on mastering her new Coiler.....and even @khoward made a guest appearance riding Dave's old Generics slalom board!

Good times....good times.

Russ

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Friday, February 14 (❤️)...

Bright sun but somewhere around -14F this morning; the usual firm Minnesota groom but no signs of the icy base except on Gandy and Blue Ruin which were left un-groomed in anticipation of racing this weekend.

Too cold for the usual cadre of weekday morning retirees but the Home School Friday crew were strewn about the hillside in long sinuous lines.

New Ride Friday for me - a (used) custom metal Donek Razor, 23 x 165 with an 8-10m sidecut:

 

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7 hours ago, rwmaron said:

Friday, February 14 (❤️)...

Bright sun but somewhere around -14F this morning; the usual firm Minnesota groom but no signs of the icy base except on Gandy and Blue Ruin which were left un-groomed in anticipation of racing this weekend.

Too cold for the usual cadre of weekday morning retirees but the Home School Friday crew were strewn about the hillside in long sinuous lines.

New Ride Friday for me - a (used) custom metal Donek Razor, 23 x 165 with an 8-10m sidecut:

 

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Boardski's board? How was it? A metal Razor, maybe that's why you couldn't feel that Spirit ice base?

I felt sorry for the college racers on Gandy and BlueRuin last weekend. They were really struggling just to make it through that icy course.

Ha! Just saw this...-39°F in Cotton this morning!

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Met up with @bobble this morning for 2nd chair (we let the 10 year old kid grab the first one). Overcast to start and then some snow showers and then sun. It started to get crowded after about an hour or so requiring avoidance maneuvers. We ran into Jolsen. Turns out he's the mystery carver I've seen a couple of times this year.

Finally went over to the Gandy side which was full of races on a sheet of ice covered by 1" of granular (Gandy & BlueRuin), spotted Trent taking photos of the racing and then we did several runs on the park groom before quitting around noon. Once the surface groom gets carved and scraped you get down to the ice base on most of your carves :freak3: SkyHooker was not carvable, especially with traffic.

We're headed over to Indianhead tomorrow:1luvu: Hoping for a sunny day. Might be holiday crowds, but not as bad as today and the snow should be perfect!

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Thursday, February 20

-1F at the open with a refreshing northwest breeze kept the snow enthusiast crowd to a bare minimum this morning, but the sun was bright and the groom was smooth (and typically firm) and covered all but one or two icy spots.

The high point of the day was running the opening sweep of the plush groomer path through the terrain park at midday, then doing it again and again and again🤪!

Finally called it quits at 3:30 when I couldn’t take anymore.

Russ

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Went up to see what the hill was like today. Took one run on 4pipe to find it's just a sheet of ice with some  loose, whitish ice crystals strewn around on top of it. If there was any carvable groom to start, I couldn't tell, but the small patches that were untracked were hard as ice. I couldn't muster the gumption to go over to the park and look for better snow.

There was a Monoski-ism a-happnin' today.

Heading over to daUP tomorrow. It's snowing there! 

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Thursday, February 27

A thin layer of whitish crystals over a rock hard base again; bright sun but the temperatures stayed in the teens so the base never softened....even runs through the plush groom of the terrain park were interrupted by jarring contacts with the icy base.

Jane was out too (I saw her when she stopped at an accident scene).....I got a lot of time running toboggans today to and from accident scenes, but not much time on the edge 🤪!

Russ

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