Berkshire East Mountain Resort on Friday, January 5, 2024

		Berkshire East Mountain Resort Friday, January 5, 2024
		Submitted on January 6, 2024 by indyskier29 (131)
	Session	Night
	Ticket Type	Discount from Ski Area
	Lift Lines	3 to 5 minutes
	Trail Conditions	35% open; Loose Granular, Packed Powder
	Glades	No natural...hoping for a foot or more tonight
	Moguls	Couple small bumps here and there, particularly on Competition, but nothing noteworthy.
	Terrain Park(s)	Two features on Exhibition
	Run of the Day	War Dance
	Food and Beverage	Chicken tenders and a cookie for dinner. They were out of a lot of things and people were waiting for them to bring more out of the kitchen.
	Comments	Another night skiing excursion up to Massachusetts. I used $25 night tickets that Berkshire East was selling for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which is an absolute steal for 1000' laps off a high speed quad in my book. Lots of other people apparently felt the same. The T-Bar express was the only summit lift running, and lines tonight were consistently 5+ minutes until the place began to clear out after 8. The Exhibition Quad was also running, as were beginner lifts. Off the summit, the options were Big Chief, Competition, and Outback. From Outback, you could ski down to Exhibition, War Dance, and Deer Run to Lower Comp and Lower Mohawk. Upper Comp was under the guns the entire night, and while it wasn't skiing horribly (a little sticky), I avoided it until my last run of the night after getting totally glazed in ice trying to ski it earlier in the night. Otherwise, the conditions were mostly "New England Packed Powder" - firm but not icy hardpack with some soft granular on top, and some areas of softer packed man-made powder. No real ice to be found, but firm and fast was the name of the game. I thought that War Dance skied the best out of the open trails, as Big Chief got a little more scraped off later on, Exhibition was fairly crowded, and Lower Comp had clearly been the site of race training earlier in the day. Lots of active snowmaking. Flying Cloud had lots of guns on and massive whales, and the lower part of the trail opened today. Riva Ridge and Grizzly were both under the guns as well as the aforementioned Upper Comp. Spot guns here and there on open terrain, particularly Riva Ridge and Outback. Around 8:30, after some sort of incident on Exhibition, an ambulance rolled up to the West Lodge. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but there was a crowd of other skiers and patrol on the trail surrounding someone. Shortly after 9, a medical helicopter landed in the parking lot, flanked by another ambulance and a fire truck, and took off about 40 minutes later and flew to Baystate Hospital in Springfield. Though I thought the conditions were pretty good for night skiing, I could definitely see inexperienced skiers going too fast on the firm conditions and losing control, especially on a wide cruiser like Exhibition. My thoughts are with those involved.
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