Sunday River
23 March 1997

Weather

Bright sun, extreme cold.

Conditions

By and large snow conditions were still good, but some famous patches of "New England Hardpack" were beginning to show through.

Overall

This was the day when Meredith Carlson caught the skiing bug, although at the start it didn't seem as if it would happen that way.

Meredith arrived around midday on Saturday and spent a couple of hours with Paul Daffern learning the basis. On Sunday morning, she was raring to go and booked a group lesson. With well over an hour to go before the start of the lesson, she decided to join us for a run down one of the "Bunny slopes!", so all three of us headed up South Ridge Express.

At the top, Meredith turned and headed down Mixing Bowl, green but not the easiest run on the mountain. As she gained speed, it looked as if she was full of confidence, but it soon became apparent that she was not in control. Paul.s cry of "Turn, Meredith", soon became "Bale out, Meredith" and we tried in vain to catch up. Part way down the slope there is a slight ridge followed by a short steeper section. Meredith disappeared from view over the top. When we crested the ridge, the slopes as far as we could see were completely empty. We formed a search party and after a few seconds, Paul found her, on her back in trees about 15 feet down a bank on the left side of the trail.

Shakily she climbed back up to the trail and explained that she actually fell on the trail and slide very slowly into the trees. She got back onto her skis, took another run with is, took her group lesson, joined us at the top of the mountain for lunch and was bruised, and hooked!

After leaving Meredith, Allen Brown, Paul Daffern and I traversed across to Aurora Peak and took two excellent fast runs down the black Airglow run. There were one or two patches of ice near the top, but the rest of the run was in good condition and well groomed.

After a break to get warm, we headed further over to the Jordan Bowl area for a series of relatively easy cruises. Getting more adventurous again, we headed down the fairly steep Eureka run near the Oz lift. The highlight of this run was a large patch of ice just where I was about to turn, which meant a deviation of the trail into the trees. I was not the first person to take the escape route, there was a clear trcak round trees and back onto the mail trail.

After meeting Meredith for lunch and taking her down a not particularly easy green trail to the restaurant, Paul, Allen and I headed for the only part of the mountain we had not skied, the White Heat. The White Heat run just to the side of the lift looked fine, partly groomed and partly mogulled and on the way up we agreed to take that run down.

At the top there was a sign - "Experts only .. No Fall Zone ..". We spent some time deciding what to do, finally agreed that it was a good job that we didn't have a lawyer with us and passed the sign and took the run. None of us fell, we all survived, but I think we were all very conscious of the steepness and length of the run.

We headed back up the lift, intent on several more runs. By this time, the wind was very strong, it was cold and we all three agreed we wern't having fun anymore, so we stopped and headed back South for The Open Group executive team offsite meeting in Sturbridge.

Runs

Last updated: 07/02/98