Mikaela Shiffrin is making it all look absurdly easy — for her. Winning today at Kronplatz (ITA) on a slope that had previously given her fits, Shiff bettered the very capable Tessa Worley by over a second, and third place Marta Bassino by over a second and a half. From Kronplatz the ladies will make a short hop over to Cortina for a trio of speed races this weekend, where we expect to see Lindsey Vonn return from injury. Shiffrin sez she’ll pass on the downhills but will compete in the super-G…incidentally this win is Shiff’s 10th on the season, and the pundits are starting to murmur about Vreni Schneider’s record 14 wins in 1988-89. Barring injury, it’s definitely doable. It’s pretty good company for a 23-year-old…switching from pundits to gurus, photo above taken by our favorite Mid-Atlantic correspondent, Woody Bousquet. The professor grabbed this shot Friday during our in-person visit to the tundra of Malone, NY where we enjoyed the perfect conditions and pleasant hospitality of Titus Mountain. With temps in the ones, we didn’t get many photos, so super kudos to Woody for this one…speaking of the Mid Atlantic, Massanutten Virginia checking in with their best conditions of the season, they got close to 7″ this past weekend and even the golf course is closed…grumblings from Jiminy Peak Massachusetts faithful this past weekend, seems the Berkshire Express high speed six pack was shut down. Still down today, waiting to hear why…snow just started falling at Mammoth Mountain in California, they’ve got 3-4″ already and it’s positively hammering. Road is still open but you probably want to look real close at any plans…up in Donner country, Boreal also getting hammered by this storm…sweeping through the central states, most have recovered nicely from the wet stuff; Paoli Peaks Indiana had all the guns going and they’re running groomers as I type this. Lifts spin for the public at noon today…Caberfae Peaks, our favorite collection of Michigan dirt piles, fully open again and firing on all cylinders…word from one of our readers yesterday regarding Stratton, sez we need to update the listing. Apparently the Southern Vermont biggie is stuffing as many as ten people into the gondy (two standing), so apologies in advance if you have to ride up with my butt in your face. Seriously though it has been a huge improvement over the old one. On a more recent front, they’ve replaced the old Snowbowl lift. You may recall we said that thing is going down the road to Magic Mountain where it is replacing one that was constructed by orcs in Mordor. So that isn’t running just yet in Londonderry, but the new Snowbowl detachable at Stratton is reportedly doing a lot of good for lines at other lifts. Stratton may take some flak for being “uppity,” but doggone it they serve up some darn fine skiing and they continually improve things…speaking of new lifts in Vermont, Killington still working on their new South Ridge lift, which I think came from their Snowdon Mountain where they have a new high speed whizbang chair. Kmart sez they hope to have it done by the end of this month; they must have eskimos doing the install…