MRG

It snowed last week and that was weird. Then it started dumping yesterday, and I started wondering what state I was in. I was studying in a problem set session for one of my engineering classes, so I figured that I was still in Hanover. I quickly turned to my friend Tats.

Powder day tomorrow? I asked.

Skipping school? She asked.

It is dumping on TOP of last week’s dump. I pointed out.

OK. She said

I decided that we were going to press the glass at Mad River Glen on a powder day in New England. Heather and Carolyn joined us, so the next morning after making breakfast bagels at 5:30, digging cars out at 7:00 and finally getting on the road at 7:30, we got to the lift just in time for opening. It was NE epic: tight trees and enough pow to make you forget the scraping noise of your skis on geologic formations. At MRG there are few lift options: the lift with a 30 min line and 2 people at a time or the single lift with a 30 min line. On the single chair, which is the last single chair at a ski area and the fastest single chair in the world for its era, you get ten minutes of you, the howling wind, your thoughts, your numbing feet, and the view of the ground under your swinging feet. By the time you get to the top, you are either shaking from the sky high experience, or from the cold. 

Thankfully there were some serious adventure to be had that could keep us sufficiently breathless and smiling. The terrain was so bare other than the past two storms that every terrain feature was fully exposed. Small drops were around every turn, and streambeds became small powder divots that if you weren’t prepared sent you over the front end without a second thought. We skied until we could no longer keep our balance and were hangry, then skied some more. The lift line smiles were infectious and the powder turns were enough to keep the angry in hangry at bay. After taking our last run, we made the comical drive back out of the mountains past stranded Prius’s sans snow tires and made one pitstop to eat every sandwich at the to go counter of a gas station.