The Presidents’ week vacation is both the best of the times and the worst of times. If it’s the only chance you have to take your family skiing for the week, it’s the best; but if you’re stuck working, it means the weekdays are going to be BUSY, and the weekends even worse. But, you still have your kids to deal with…what to do?
Strategic decision time (we all have to make these as parents, don’t we?): Take Dan and his friend Colin out on Thursday. Why? Here goes the convoluted thinking…get past the weekend, get through the first few days of the week so that the people who are there ALL week have tired legs, but go before Friday when the people who are taking off for a long second weekend show up. Did it work? Read on…
Thursday at Loon Mountain, Presidents’ Week
We decided to head for Loon Mountain; another strategic decision. Loon has excellent snowmaking, plus the recent storms have dumped a bunch of snow there. Plus, the recent nor’easter had chosen to make its largest dump over on South Peak, which, in our experience, gets less traffic than the area serviced by the gondola. And, it’s a big enough, spread out enough mountain that there’s room to get away from traffic most of the time.
Getting there a little before 9, we were able to park in the main lot…bonus! Clearly, it wasn’t packed. We hustled in and got changed, and got our first surprise, a gondola line running under 5 minutes; even with the parking lot not full, we didn’t expect that! Up to the top, down Haulback and Lower Flume, conditions were very good; but, we definitely had to work around other skiers. Back up to the North Peak, down Sunset/Haulback/Lower Walking Boss; better, but still traffic outside of the monster moguls that were growing fast was thicker than the boys liked. Time to head over to South Peak and, hopefully, emptier trails.
And…proof positive we aren’t morons (at least about this)! Conditions were not only better, but there were NO lines at the lift, period. We skied there until lunchtime, and never once waited; not 30 seconds, not 15, NO waiting. And the trails were all they hoped they’d be; Ripsaw was hard and fast but not icy, Twitcher & Jobber were the same, but our biggest fun was Cruiser. With its more gentle slope, the wind wasn’t taking as much snow off it, and there was plenty to play in; on skier’s right, there were all sorts of jumps and bumps to add to the fun.
Continuing with our plan, we headed back to the lodge around 11:30, for two reasons. One, it’s easier to get a table before the hordes came in, and two, we could get back out while they all sat there and ate. Our luck continued; there was one table left near our gear, and when we went the cafeteria they were just bringing out fresh soft pretzels. Treat! And as we put our gear back on, the place UTTERLY filled up. Time to head back up to North Peak, and hope the traffic was less!
Up the gondola…same line as at 9:00. Back down the same runs as the first time; scratchy areas had appeared, but there was plenty of trail where the snow was good, and, with half the traffic, plenty of room to get good runs without weaving through human slalom gates. We skied everything but Bucksaw, which had mammoth bumps like Lower Flume, but no easy escape path. With legs that had been ripping through run after run with no delays, none of us wanted to push the limits in a dangerous way…particularly after watching a scenario play out on Lower Flume as we came up the lift. A father had taken his young, wedge-skiing son into the monster moguls, with predictable results; skis and poles everywhere, the child clearly in distress and afraid to ski out once he got his skis back on. This is a too-common scenario that we see during vacation weeks; kids are skiing better, want to expand, and parents say “sure”…but big moguls are scary enough for a 6 footer. Imagine being a 3 footer, with them over your head, and you can see why this little guy was petrified, particularly after a scary fall; he couldn’t even see his way out of the mogul field!
By 2:30, we all were at the “I think I’ve got one more run in my legs” stage; that’s the time to quit, before getting 3/4 of the way down the next run and finding out that you really don’t have one left. We headed down Sunset and into the terrain parks to spend a few minutes watching the teens showing there stuff; got to see some great jumping! Perhaps even more fun was watching kids learning new tricks on the “Big Airbag”; jump, do what you want, and land only a few feet down on a massive air pillow. ALMOST it tempted this old dog to try a new trick himself; maybe another time, with fresh legs.
All in all, a great day. The strategy to get the most enjoyment out of a vacation week day worked flawlessly, Loon’s conditions were excellent and held up for the full day…can’t ask for more than that! For those of you who avoid skiing during vacations, give this routine a try at your favorite area; you might be surprised at how much fun you can have.