Blazer's Bluff

[ajl50]

Conditions page indicates that Blazer's Bluff is expected to open. the Prance report isn't loading. If this is true somebody has to report on it...
oh and the slides? Any chance or too much avy danger?

[AdironRider]

There are some serious obstacles to cover in there, and yesterday while I was on the lifts the headwall looked money but the bottom right turn still had some rocks, etc showing. Given that they got 17" more last night, Id say once this all consolidates a bit it should open up.

Besides, Empire was AMAZING yesterday. Great coverage. I mustve lapped it 6 times or so, dipping into the glades every once in a while.

[Adirondackskier]

Just called the mountain about prance and it is currently experiencing super heavy volume and the server is having issues. They are working on it.
Here is the report:
Lifts: Mixing Bowl Bear Facelift and Freeway
Powder
When it was all said and done 37" of fresh pow
winds

[AdironRider]

Yeah windhold on everything thats worth it besides Parkway, and Ive heard that alot of people couldnt even get there today. Should be mighty fine tomorrow. Expect some wind blown firm spots in the usual areas I would think (there wasnt a problem yesterday as it was snowing so much, but I can see it becoming a problem quite quickly) but the usual powder spots should be amazingly deep. With the winds yesterday I was hitting knee deep consistently, thigh deep at least a couple times every run, and in a couple stashs of mine it was waist deep drifts. Work the mountain and it should be damn good tomorrow. I bet they groom it down though tomorrow night on the majority of the easy stuff, but hell who cares about the greens on days like these.

[highpeaksdrifter]

Take it to the slopes and I decided to take one more run up top around 3:15 Sunday afternoon. On the way up we saw someone go in from the right side. When the chair got closer we could see that there was a legal opening in the temporary orange fencing and a thin cover sign.

So we skied down to it and in we went. The top steep part was a sheet of wind blow extremely hard pack, but not ice. We traversed across that, hit the snow and started turning. I have to admit that after looking down that trail from chair 6 numerous times and seeing all those big rocks and boulders, I half expected to bottom out or have my tips sink in the deep snow and hit a rock and send me flying down the hill at any turn, but it never happened.

I didn’t think we’d get enough snow to fill that all in this season and I’m glad I was wrong. At one point Slopes put his pole in to see how deep the snow was. After his whole pole was in and he was up to his elbow he still had not touched bottom.

On the run out we followed a single track with a steep and jarring 3 to 4 foot up hill, but we both made it through.

All in all Blazer’s was a blast. It is steep, short, but very sweet.

Here’s some pics. Sorry about the quality, but the light was bad there that time of the agternoon.


Slopes rockin it hard


Look above the skier on top, he's just below the slab of hard pack


Beginning of the run out

[ajl50]

Nice...is there an uphill at the end of the trail where it connects back in?
Was it worth it?

[AdironRider]

Nice, hopefully I can check it out tomorrow. That headwall looks gnarly from the chair.

[highpeaksdrifter]

Nice...is there an uphill at the end of the trail where it connects back in?
Was it worth it?

The up hill comes before the reconnect to the trail. We skied right up it and out.

I enjoyed it, so it was well worth it to me.

[ComeBackMudPuddles]

Nice shots, thanks for sharing.

Trails usually look quite a bit flatter on photos than in real life, so it's pretty clear that the drop is VERY steep! Good stuff.

Given the strict mileage limit on Whiteface terrain imposed by the NYS constitution, I'm still not convinced that Blazer's Bluff was the best idea (short steep drop won't hold snow well, long flat worthless run out). Then again, it looks pretty intense and gives the mountain some additional character, so why not?

[NPN]

Given the strict mileage limit on Whiteface terrain imposed by the NYS constitution,

Would you explain this a little more?