Liberty & Whitetail closing dates.
March 10, 2004
Actually, it was kind of a lame one...
but it isn't over yet!
From what I heard at lineup last night, WT will probably only have open green terrain during this last week, so if you are expecting more advanced terrain, double check before you come up. My guess is that they are saving the snow on the advanced terrain for next weekend, which will probably be the last one of the season for WT.
Here a summary of conditions as of Sunday night:
All greens generally had plenty of snow, but there were a few spots where it was getting a bit thin, ponding up, etc. I suspect the groomers will spread around what's left to cover these areas, so they should be in fine shape this week unless we have another ultra warm spell.
Unfortunately, Fanciful and Snowdancer are now one-third mud and down for the count.
Limelight had one spot where it narrowed down, but was generally in nice shape.
Angel to Drop-In was fine.
Bold Decision probably had the best snow on the mountain - my pick.
From the chair, Exhibition looked OK but small skied off areas were developing.
Although I didn't ski it yesterday (Sunday), Far Side was excellent on Wednesday, except for one spot near the top where melting had narrowed it down considerably. According to people I spoke to, apparently, it hadn't changed much between Wed and Sunday.
Amazingly enough, even with the very warm temps, the snow was not deeply rotted as I had expected. The upper inch or two was a soft, slurpee-like consistency, but at least you didn't sink in to your boot tops like I have seen during the spring thaw at other resorts.
HTH,
Tom / PM
Gatkinso:
Can't agree on your characterization of a "lame" season. The resorts opened in mid December with only a couple of weeks to get to advanced slope openings. It stayed that way until the beginning of March. Short - yes. Lame - hardly!
I'd say this has been an average to slightly above average season (at least for Whitetail/Liberty/Roundtop). Somewhat below average amounts of natural snow, but plenty of cold weather for snowmaking. Closing in mid-March is typical for those areas; this Sunday is the 14th. Plus they had a good amount of terrain open before Xmas.
It just wasn't a great winter. Last year was a great winter. This year was OK.
My Rating System:
Fantastic - snows all winter and stays cold schools close and feds shut down a couple of times during the season, skiing is legendary!
OK - doesn't snow much, cold for 3 weeks then warm for 3 weeks and so forth...schools close, feds weenie out and declare the infamous "Liberal Leave", skiing is good, but not remarkable
Poor - no snow, warm all winter - I growl alot at my wife.....
Uh-oh Michael, you've posted a list. This has JohnL satire written all over it!
Maybe we can use one of those new "post a polls" to get everyone's opinion of this almost-past winter?