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Day 30 4-10-02
End of the Season, Happy Birthday Steve! What better way to end a season then with the die hard ski bums. Our Club President Glenn even decided to make a cameo appearance.A few made it up for some fun in the sun. The rain did take its toll on the mountain and if you wanted to ski more then two runs you needed your rock skis. I got to the mountain bright and early, 7:25am. Well I should have slept in. The rain had washed away all the snow from the lift ramps. The crew at Hunter pushed the snow to the load ramps and by 9:10 AM it was ski on ski off service. I figured I would end the season on my newly made rock ski the Volant Epic T3, 183cm. You had to carefully pick your trails if you wanted to stay off the rocks. If you took Cliff or Huggas, you wound up on Bleeker Street. Hey, that's Tom R. and Steve G. trying to avoid a base weld. Notice Steve carefully pick his line, as Tom looks on for sparks. If you want a challenge in a mono-ski this is it. Traversing some very narrow thin to no cover areas without going off the snow. I tried to pick the shortest most direct line to snow and hit it fast to get over the dirt, grass and rocks. It is amazing how the performance of a ski can dramatically change when skiing over rocks and dirt. This is what was left of Bleeker Street. Upper Racers was closed, so this was the path to Eisenhower, in the morning anyway. After a few rock runs I headed over to see what the park was like. This was the view on Kennedy from the "B" lift. It was a bit cloudy in the morning, but by late morning there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Lunch was great. The small core group of die hard ski bums gathered on the sun deck for our annual end of season lunch and to wish Steve a Happy Birthday. Over all I am impressed with the abuse this ski took with out breaking, but it did flatten out, the Volant was done. Time for the Atomic 11.20. I decided to take it easy and stay away form the rocks, but then again it was the last day and after lunch I did wind up De-tuning the Atomic on some dirt and rocks. This was the path to Eisenhower, in the afternoon. There is our club President and fearless leader Glenn leading the way for me. Once you got past the bare spot, it was a narrow steep bump field. After that I noticed the Atomic was not performing to factory specifications, not bad, but enough to make me want to change skis again. Next up was my Volkl P40 F1 183cm. This ski is set up for cold ice, and I was skiing it on spring mash potatoes. It was hooking up too much, very stiff ski, but it made for a good challenge. I decided to stay on the snow for the rest of the day. HellGate and Belt offered lift to lift service with no rocks. I stopped on Hellgate to take some pics. This was looking out over upper Crossover, turn to the left and see this turn to the right and see this. and this Notice how empty the trail is. It was ski Bums day at Hunter. I wanted to get some pics of me skiing with the beautiful blue ski background. I met a friendly skier willing to take some and this is what we shot on Broadway and Kennedy. This and this and this and this and this and this and It's Glenn feeling the effects of day one on snow, as I follow ,and here I come to the top of Kennedy and a smooth landing. If you wanted the Ski Racers This was your path to drop in for some great bumps. Hey, that's Bill and Barb. Another trip up the quad as the sun bakes Hellgate. I ended off my season doing a few speed runs down the belt. This Volkl rips, it is a rocket. I only turned where the trail led, Very fast very stable, very fun! This is how it looked 4-10-02 when we ended the season. The last few headed over to our ritualistic stop for hot wings and garbage pie. There you have it, 2001,2002 season in the archives of life.
This might take a few to LOAD