Skiing Ruthie's, April 14th

There was light rain falling at 35 degrees as we left the house to head to the Center to check out the late season skiing. The temp dropped from 35 to 34 as we drove up the North Wolcott Rd. The windmills on the Lowell Ridge were obscured by what looked like snow or sleet. It was starting to rain harder and the road was getting wet. We started to brace ourselves for a short wet ski.

By the time we arrived at the Center, the rain had stopped and it seemed to be getting brighter. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. As we crossed the upper field we discovered that the ungroomed snow had set up nicely overnight even though it didn't quite freeze. And as we headed into the woods, we found that the couple of inches of dense sleet we had a couple of days ago was still doing a nice job covering the occasional bare spots that were starting to show in places without a manmade base.

Dick was on skate skis; Judy was on no-wax classic. The skating was quite fast on the smooth granular surface; there were a few ski tracks from yesterday, but they did not interfere. No-wax classic skis weren’t exactly fast, but they worked great and made for a somewhat mindless ski.

Where to ski? It seemed quite likely that this could be our last chance to get a final “connected” ski around Ruthie's Run. To top it off the sun came out as we headed down Kirby's Pass…yep, this was a day to do Ruthie’s.

The cover was surprisingly consistent, in many places thanks to the dense layer of sleet that had fallen on Friday. In other places, there was over a foot of base that won’t be melting too soon. The thinnest spot was out in the field near Creek Rd—no big surprise—Judy skied across it in her no-wax; Dick opted to take off his skate skis. But then we were back into good cover again.

We were pretty much grinning all the way around, feeling lucky to have snatched one of the more enjoyable runs of the year from the jaws of spring.