Dutch Hill, 3/8 Spring Skiing!

[Sam Bartlett]

It's time for Spriiiiing Skiiiing at Dutch Hill!
The morning drizzle quit just as five of us were heading
up Dutch Hill at 11am today, Mar 8. This was the first
time at Dutch Hill for the four tour participants.
It was about 40F, with 23" of snow at the base and 35"
at the top. There is a loose layer of corn snow on top of a
variably solid base, with a light crust on top of
everything. No bare spots to be seen except for a few
open wet spots.
We skied Yankee Doodle after touring over to the Vista.
Then we split up and some of us did YD again and some
did North Woods. Then some of us did Christiana and one
skier stayed with the tried-and-true YD.
YD has a mostly solid base with corn on top. Basically
anywhere that had been skied in the weeks prior had a
packed base with the new corn on top and was pretty
reliable spring skiing. Which means you had to earn your
turns both uphill and down. One AT skier had a reliable
hop turn and had fun in the moguly areas especially. My
tele turn worked well in this stuff and the others worked
at cranking parallel and wedge turns through the corn.
North Woods was pretty much the same as YD.
Christiana had been skied much less and had some soft
deep areas that were hard to discerne until you dropped
into one.
The sun, which had been teasing us for a while, came out
as we were leaving about 3pm.
About 8 cars at 11am, only one when we left.
The rivers are running and the forecast is for melting but
the snow is pretty dense, so it will be there a bit longer.
--

Sam Bartlett

[Phil]

Yahoo! Thanks Sam.