No complaints

Well, it looks like ski season is finally over. Unless someone wants to treat me to a day or two at Jay Peak. ;-)
In any event, I have no complaints. It's been a great season, especially the late season, March into April.
In fact, since I started skiing 5 years ago, every season has been better than the last. Primarily because of my continual improvement but also because the ski areas here in the East do such a great job making and grooming snow when the weather is less than stellar for the natural stuff.
This week, i got two great days at Stratton. Late season special for over 65 geezers like me ... $10. Can't beat that.
Monday, the hill was still fully covered but the Sun Bowl was closed down so the trails serviced by those lifts were not open. The upper mountain was still hard until about 11AM but after about 1/3 of the way down it was great. In fact the cord at the top of Mike's Way was more like a washboard. Everybody was commenting on the noise! It made me laugh it was so ridiculous.
I went back on Thursday and the mountain had taken a pretty good hit from warm temps and rain over the 2 days between trips. There were a lot of unmarked hazards, ice, bare dirt and such so you had watch your step, at least I did.
The Ursa lift to the upper mountain was marked Experts only which spooked me the first time I approached it but after lunch I went up anyway and was glad I did. The temp never got above freezing up there so the top third or so stayed hard all day. Also there were some nasty hazards right at the top of some of the runs so I guess therein lies the "expert" warning but I navigated them OK. It was well worth enduring the dicey parts. Once you got past the ice and things softened up the snow was creamy and buttery and little trafficked. In fact, I was so alone on some runs that it was kind of eerie.
Mike's Way had a really ugly bare spot and a wide patch of ice at the top but once you got past  that it was almost pristine. Wide, mostly untouched soft groom all the way to the bottom.
By the way, the best thing I did that day was get my skis waxed. I intended to do that at first but the First Run shop was closed. After 3 runs I asked the lifty where I might get it done and he suggested I try the rental shop. They were closed too but someone inside saw me and he was glad to do it for me no charge. Wow, what a difference that made. Really smoothed out the crud.
A favorite run at Stratton is Drifter, a long, blue, narrow twister that had my quads burnin' pretty good by the end. I did that one both days. Lots of fun!
I also had a good time exploring a few of the short runs on the west side of the lower mountain like Snow Bowl Alley, White Birch and Hemlock which all feed into Flukey's Run .... pleasant, mellow.
Monday I did try one of the black diamonds over on the east side, Upper Tamarack, which was kind of chunky but soft and covered edge to edge. I look forward to exploring that area more next year. Looks like fun.
Kudos to Stratton for offering such great late season deals. I hope they do it again next year. I eagerly anticipate going back.
So now it's go through a little withdrawal and then gear up for biking and hiking!

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