The One-Inch Rule
For most, fall is a time for fireside hot chocolate and fiery-colored leaves—sensible skiers wait for sensible amounts of snow. Not so for a group of Northeasterners; all they need is a heavy frost and a bit of gravity.
Words: Brian Mohr
My wife Emily used to have a four-inch rule. She would reserve her first turns of the season until there was a respectable blanket of snow stretching most of the way down our eastern mountainsides, normal and sensible logic to guarantee good turns and clean bases.
Then I corrupted her with some uniquely northeastern logic: the one-inch rule.
Let’s say one or two inches of wet autumn snow falls, and then gets topped with a nice dusting of powder as the storm moves out. This bomber micro-base might only be three-fingers thick, but it’s thoroughly plastered to our not-so-rocky mountainsides, and, I argue, it often skis better than many more inches of baseless powder…