I left the house near midday under cloudy skies and a temperature of 39 F, but a few minutes into the drive, the temperature dropped to 37 F in the Waterbury Center area, and snow began to fall. It snowed lightly all the way to the mountain, and accumulations began to appear just as I hit the resort base at ~1,500’ in elevation. The temperature had really dropped as I ascended the last stretch to the resort, and as I parked in the Midway lot, the temperature was right around the freezing mark.
Accumulations in the Midway area were generally a trace to an inch, so I stowed my skis on my pack and headed over toward Nosedive to use that standard route of ascent. As I approached the 2,000’ mark, the snow depth became a bit more consistent, generally in the 1”-2” range, and I switched to skins. I was probably a touch early on putting on my skins since I encountered a few more spots of mud, but that’s what rock skins are for, and it made for a lot less slipping than hiking in my boots. The precipitation that had been snow at the start of my ascent turned into more of a freezing mist as I headed into the clouds around 3,000’. Up around 3,600’ at the Stone Hut it was windy, well below freezing, and quite chaotic with Stowe’s snow gun firing off what seemed like a 21 gun salute. I sheltered behind the hut to keep out of the wind and the roar of the snow guns as I switched to descent mode and had a much needed snack. The wind made for plenty of drifting during my ascent, but I’d sum up the snow depths with respect to elevation as follows:
I’d only encountered a couple of groups descending on Nosedive while on my ascent, but there were plenty of tracks from previous visitors and the snow was quite packed out, so I decided to descend some other terrain off to the south. The combination of wind, freezing mist, low visibility, and manmade snow made for a really challenging descent, especially on my skinny Telemark skis, so I generally just took it easy and stuck to mellow terrain. In general I didn’t find much in the way of decent turns until I got down onto Sunrise below the snowmaking, and pretty quickly after that the snow depth was getting a bit meager. I did manage some nice turns here and there, but eventually it was more gorilla-style survival turns until I finally decided to call it at the elevation of Crossover. I strapped the skis back on my pack and had a nice stroll back to the car. I’d say at this point the skiing isn’t worth putting in a ton of effort, but it’s definitely fun to get out for a few turns if you’re close by. We’ll have to see if anything comes from the Nor’easter that’s expected this week though, because the current snow could serve as a decent base for another round of accumulations.
Date Snow at the stake (in.)
9/15/1959 1
9/16/1986 4
9/17/1986 2
However, assuming they have historically been using the same practice of reporting the depth of the snowpack at the end of the day (~5:00 P.M. or so) as they do now, it was likely that there was overnight September snowfall that simply didn’t make it through the entirety of many warm, September days to be reported from the stake. Therefore, I also checked the snowfall data, and found that indeed there are a fair amount of reports of September snowfall:
There are a few years with no data, but accumulating September snow does happen on Mt. Mansfield, at a rate of roughly a couple times each decade. I’m not quite sure what was going on with the 2009 number, since one doesn’t generally report snowfall to the hundredths of an inch; perhaps they are reporting a trace on that one. Not surprisingly, September snowfall is more frequent on Mt. Washington with a couple thousand feet of extra vertical – the September monthly average there is 2.2” inches, and the monthly maximum is almost 8 inches, so accumulating September snow is probably fairly common.
I also scanned the Mt. Mansfield data for August, and there was even one report of accumulation there:
Date Snowfall (in.)
8/28/1986 0.20
Since there was also mention of October, I took a look at those data as well. Because accumulating October snowfall is already fairly common even down here in the mountain valleys of the Northern Greens (out of the six season’s worth of snowfall data I have collected here, four Octobers have seen accumulating snowfall, and the average is right around an inch) I figured that getting October accumulation on Mt. Mansfield must be almost a lock. Indeed that’s the case; after checking the snowpack data from 1954 – 2012, there are only a handful of seasons without reported snowpack, and one of those seasons did at least show some snowfall:
Seasons without reported October snowpack on Mt. Mansfield
1956-1957
1963-1964 – 0.1” snowfall
1971-1972
1973-1974
1985-1986
1996-1997
2007-2008
So essentially it’s about twice a decade that there is accumulating snow on Mt. Mansfield in September, and about once a decade that there isn’t accumulating snow on Mt. Mansfield in October.
The skiing yesterday was so good, that it was definitely worth going back for some more today. Snow continued to fall last night, and even down at the house it was still snowing under partly cloudy skies during the first part of the morning. It was only accumulating minimally in our yard, but the radar showed the moisture continuing to crash into the Northern Greens, so the mountains were getting at least of bit of additional accumulation. Down at the house, the mix of clouds, sun, and snowfall eventually gave way to full sunshine. Ideally, it would have been nice to head out really early to catch the powder before it was potentially affected by the late April sun, but the boys were enjoying a leisurely start to a day off from school, and we didn’t head to Stowe until late morning.
With the clear skies, it was a chance to finally see how the snowfall had played out in the mountains on our drive to the resort. The first thing I could see was that accumulations of white were just painting the tops of the ~2,000’ peaks across the Winooski Valley from our house. Our next view was of the Worcester Range, which was white for about the top 1,000’. The real dramatic views came when we finally saw Mt. Mansfield though, where the alpine regions were just blazing white above the touches of green foliage in the valley. Everyone in the car was stunned by how white the mountain looked, and E pulled over so I could get a few pictures from a good viewpoint.
Our first views of Mt. Mansfield revealed some stunning bright snow above the developing foliage in the valley.
Unlike yesterday, we found the gate to the Mansfield parking lot fully locked, so we parked right near it along with the cars of a few other people who were doing the same thing. We geared up, and walked over to the area above the Mansfield Base Lodge. The morning sun was already warming the snow in the lowest elevations, and I could see that there was less snow down near the lodge than when I’d been there yesterday. The temperature was still 34 F at the base though, so the freezing line wasn’t going to be too far above us.
E and Ty skinning up North Slope today for some April powder
We put on our skins right on the flats above the lodge. We were able to piece together a skin route up to Crossover fairly easily, but some gaps in the snow cover were starting to form. The strong April sun was also starting to make the snow sticky, but there was a nice stiff, cold breeze that seemed to be fighting against that. E and the boys weren’t too psyched by the look of the snow coverage, but I assured them it was going to get much better above 2,000’, and indeed it did. Not only did the coverage get better, but the snow was much drier above the 1,800’ Crossover level, and it looked like turns were going to be quite good. We encountered a few groups making ascents and descents, and a lot of dogs, but they were all quite well behaved. Actually, one of the coolest dog encounters of the day, or perhaps lack of encounter, was with what we’re guessing was a Samoyed. He appeared way above us, and came bounding down toward us with fur so incredibly thick that the look was that of an abominable snowman. We’d seen a few people around, but there was no obvious owner in sight, and when the dog came by he didn’t hassle us at all, he just passed along with a friendly look and went on his merry way. He definitely had the bearing of a dog that was built for snow and was having fun in his environment. We were able to continue our ascent up to around the 2,800’ elevation just above the top of the Mountain Triple before the boys really decided that they’d had enough. E was also unsure about the quality of the snow, and didn’t want to continue on a long ascent just to get more snow of marginal quality. Based on my impressions of the snow, which had continued to dry out more and more as we ascended, along with the body language of the skier’s we’d seen descending, I felt that the conditions were going to be great. But, you never really know how it’s going to ski until you try it, so I offered to skin up a little farther and ski down to check the snow before we made our final decision about the descent. Dylan was full of energy and made the ascent with me. After removing our skins, Dylan made the first descent, and once I saw him rip off a beautiful Telemark turn, I knew we were going to be in great shape. Indeed the snow was fairly nice packed powder up at that elevation; the cool temperatures and breeze were doing their job well.
The birthday boy with his new shiny goggles takes a break in the snow during our descent.
We still descended at that point, and went by the same route we climbed, knowing that the coverage was decent and there would be a lot of good turns. The boys had several days of fairly intense Telemark training toward the end of the lift-served ski season at Stowe, but it’s been a few weeks since they did all that work, and E was wondering if they would retain all the progress they’d made. It was also the first time since those sessions that they’d been in powder, chowder, or any type of winter snow. We were happy to see that those first turns that Dylan made weren’t a fluke, and the boys really made a lot of excellent Telemark turns, even some in steep terrain in the chopped up powder. Various groups of skiers and riders had used the North Slope route by this afternoon, so most of the terrain was tracked up, but we still found some nice areas of untracked snow, and those were some of the best turns of the day. The last pitch of North Slope had a few tricky spots because it’s steep and has some areas of rock instead of grass, and then below Crossover in the terrain park area it was a game of connecting the dots among sticky snow, but it was a pretty minor part of the run compared to the bulk that had good snow. The fun part about that last section was the team route finding, and playing in the pockets of powder that had settled in among the vestiges of the some of the terrain park features.
Like Dylan, Ty showed some great recall on all the Telemark practice he put in this spring
Overall I think E was pleasantly surprised by just how good the snow turned out to be; it certainly wasn’t up to the quality of yesterday by time we got out, but there was definitely some midwinter snow above that 1,800-2,000’ level. I was intrigued by the interesting interplay between the strong sun and the cold and wind; I’m still amazed at how well the snow avoided getting sticky in the higher elevations. It was definitely a really good outing for Dylan. First off, it was his birthday, but he also go to use his new Anon goggles for the first time and he was very excited about that. On top of that though, he really had good energy on the ascent and made some really nice Telemark turns on parts of the descent. I’d say he kicked off his seventh birthday with some style.
I checked on the Bolton Valley Web Cam a couple of times during the day today, and knowing that it was snowing the whole time in the mountains, I headed off to Stowe in the afternoon to do a tour and ski some of the new powder. Temperatures remained in that upper 30s F through the Winooski Valley and into Waterbury Center; and although it wasn’t accumulating, it snowed continuously in the mountain valleys. It was right around 1,000’ near the Matterhorn that I first started seeing accumulations of snow on the ground, and by the time I’d reached the base of Mt. Mansfield at around 1,500’, the temperature was near freezing and the snow was accumulating easily. I found an inch or two of new snow outside the Mansfield Base Lodge, and even down at that elevation it was quite dry.
I put on my gear and skinned up in the North Slope area, knowing that it had a decent base of snow thanks to Powderfreak’s snow reports from the past few days. Light snowfall continued during my ascent, but the wind wasn’t bad, and temperatures just a few degrees below freezing were pleasant. I followed the vestiges of a skin track that while presumably fairly recent, wasn’t very deep, and indeed the new snow and at least some wind erased it in many spots. There was visible grass poking through the snow in the lowest elevations below Crossover, and even a bit above that level, but at around 2,000’ atop the bottom steep pitch of North Slope, the coverage got more consistent and things really started to look appealing. The snow depth didn’t really increase all that rapidly with elevation; there were probably 3 to 4 inches in the middle elevations, and some areas were scoured a bit, but some areas were also a bit deeper.
I continued my skin on up on Lord and Lower Ridgeview, and the snow had reached a depth of about 5 inches at 3,500’ where I stopped my ascent just a bit below the top of the Fourrunner Quad on Lord Loop. It was a little tough to get an accurate measurement of the snow depth due to drifting, but I’ll go with 5 inches as my best guess for up near the top of the quad. I did find areas where accumulations were as deep as 7 inches, but those seemed to be spots where snow had collected efficiently with help from the wind. As of 5:20 P.M., the depth of snow at the Mt. Mansfield Stake had gone up by 4 inches, so that certainly seems to be in the range of what I found up in the higher elevations. I saw a couple of small groups of skiers and riders during my ascent, but there really weren’t too many people out on that North Slope route.
I descended generally in the region of my ascent, since I’d seen the state of the base coverage there, although I did make a side excursion onto Sunrise because I was presented with a huge expanse of unbroken snow that looked like it had decent base. I touched down on firm stuff a couple of times, but it was definitely worth it. I was unsure of the coverage lower down on that route, but I was able to make my way back toward the main North Slope route by using what I think was part of Toll Road. Anyway, the snow was nice medium-weight powder, and although this storm hasn’t delivered as much as that last one a couple weeks ago, the powder is of much higher quality. It’s not totally bottomless powder skiing everywhere, but in many areas it is, and with the nice base snow below, it makes for some smooth and effortless turns. In the last few hundred vertical feet of the descent below Crossover, there are certainly areas where there’s no base, but the snow is deep enough and of enough substance that the turns are smooth all the way to the top of the stairs above the Mansfield Base Lodge. You certainly want to be careful to watch out for rocks, but one doesn’t really need rock skis unless they really want to venture well off the beaten path into areas that don’t have any sort of base.
There were a few obstacles to navigate around today, but the rewards were some really sweet powder turns on the slopes of Mt. Mansfield.
Back at the car, I spoke with another guy who had skied in the Nosedive area, and he said it was fabulous in the upper elevations, and OK toward the bottom, but I’m not sure if there is quite as much base in the lower elevations there based on what I’ve seen from afar. Temperatures were dropping when I left the resort around 6:30 P.M. or so, and I saw accumulating snow all the way down to The Gables Inn on the Mountain Road, which is around 750’. I met E and the boys for dinner at Frida’s, and when we were done, snow was accumulating right in the center of Stowe at around 700’ as the temperatures continued to drop. It snowed on and off all the way back to our house in Waterbury (495’), and I found a couple of tenths of an inch of accumulation on the snowboard as of 8:00 P.M. It’s continued to snow all evening, it’s still been light, but there’s another tenth of an inch or two on the board now. It’s going to be quite cold the next few nights, and not really that warm during the day, so the new snow should be around for some good skiing during that time.
I had some time earlier today, so I headed off to Stowe to check out the new snow and make some turns. The temperature was in the upper 30s F through the valleys, so the precipitation was all rain, and it was literally pouring at times. Snow started to mix in with the rain up around 1,200’ as I ascended toward the Stowe Mountain Resort Cross Country Ski Center, and it quickly changed over to all snow by the time I’d reached the Inn at the Mountain a few moments later. The precipitation was wet snow as I parked at the Midway lot (~1,600’) and the accumulation was a couple of inches. The snowflakes were small, in the 1-3 mm range, but it was coming down fairly heavily and I quickly had to put on my ski jacket to avoid getting soaked.
Two feet of new snow at 2,500'
There were a few cars in the lot, and to begin my ascent I followed the collection of boot prints and skin tracks that led toward Nosedive; I definitely wanted to find an established skin track, because it sounded like the couple of inches in the parking lot was quickly going to turn into a lot more in the higher elevations. And indeed it did – within just a couple of minutes after leaving the lot, I was walking through several inches of fresh snow, so I put on my skis and hopped in the skin track. I was immediately thankful for the skin track, which felt like a superhighway since it was made by some pretty fat skis. With that great skin track in place, the ascent was smooth and fast, and as I continued to check the depth of the new snow with my measurement pole, I was astonished at how quickly it increased. By 2,000’ the depth of the snow was already 11”, and by 2,500’ it was 24 inches. That meant that it was essentially increasing by a couple of inches every 100 vertical feet, and if that level of increase kept up, there was going to be four feet of new snow at the top. However, the depth of the snow stopped increasing at 2,500’, and remained right around two feet from there on up.
I saw a couple of other guys on the skin track during my ascent, and talked to one of them when we both stopped near the top of Nosedive. He said that he was one of the guys that set the skin track this morning, and I thanked him a lot for that because it was fantastic. He said it was tough, but that the second person in line really had it easy because the dense snow compacted so well, so he and the guy he worked with switched off pretty frequently because the back person was rested so quickly. He had just done a lap down to the 2,500’ level, and said that he felt that was a bit low to go to stay in the best snow; ending a few hundred feet higher would be better.
The wet snow that had been falling heavily throughout the ascent was giving my Gore Tex quite a workout, but there was no wind and temperatures were very comfortable in the 30s F, so various vents and flaps on my gear were open to keep cool. As I crested the last part of Nosedive though, winter came roaring in, with the wind picking up a bit, the temperature dropping below freezing, and all the moisture that had accumulated on my gear during the ascent freezing into crustiness. These are the days when you really appreciate those high-tech waterproof breathable fabrics though, because things were nice and dry on the inside.
A pair of skiers ascending Nosedive this morning amidst the continued snowfall
I stopped at the top for a few minutes, and there were several folks using the new ski patrol building at the top of the Fourrunner Quad for a quick break. Overall the snow was still just a couple feet deep, but there were a few drifts, and at one point while I was out of my skis, I stepped down and sank up to my waist in powder. The snow was still fairly dense even up around 3,700’, but bigger flakes were falling and it was overall a notably drier environment than the lower elevations.
It was still snowing all the way down at the base elevations when I'd finished my ski tour this morning.
For my descent, I headed down in the direction of Hayride; I was unsure how this dense snow was going to ski, but I figured Hayride was a reasonable, steep piece of terrain to keep me moving if necessary. After my first few turns I could tell that this snow was going to be challenging on my midfat Telemark skis. It was bottomless Sierra Cement/Cascade Concrete, and it definitely required a certain level of finesse on the Teles. I’ve been used to skiing fairly dry Vermont powder all season, so it took a couple of impressive flops before I dialed in my technique and started to cruise through the dense snow. I was reminded of a day in December 2001 that E and I skied similar snow at Schweitzer Ski Resort in Idaho – they’d just received four feet of Cascade Concrete, and people were flopping all over the place on the trails, sometimes taking several minutes to extricate themselves each time. We were on alpine skis at the time, so things were a bit easier, but there’s no question that bottomless dense snow can be a challenge to ski. A group of three snowboarders passed by me on their descent, and watching them, I thought about how nice it would be to have my snowboard, but it would have been a pain on the ascent. I was happy to find that my turns were smooth for a while, but between the 2,500’ and 3,000’ level the snow began to get wetter, and I had to work harder and harder to keep my stance dialed in. Below the 2,500’ mark the skiing was a bit “survival style”, with the focus on just on keeping that perfect balance on each turn. There was actually another change in the snow that made things a bit easier below that point (perhaps dense enough that one didn’t sink in much at all) but as I approached the Crossover trail, the snow began to change once more as it really got slushy and difficult to do much more than straight line it. I rode Crossover back over to the Gondola base – it continued to snow even down that low in elevation, but I could tell that it was wetter than it had been at the base in the morning. Back at the car I chatted with Powderfreak, who had just arrived for some turns. I let him know about the nice skin track on Nosedive, and at one point he mentioned that there could be more snow coming into the area tonight.
I’m going to be home with the boys over the next few days, so I’ll have to decide what skiing to do with them. If the texture of the snow doesn’t tighten up a bit, Telemark skiing will be very challenging for them, so we may have to think about getting in some lift-served turns on their alpine skis. Jay Peak is running their lifts, and they’re reporting 15 inches in the past 48 hours. Killington is also offering lift-served skiing, and they’re reporting 19” in the past 48 hours. With Stowe already at 24 inches as of this morning, and precipitation continuing to fall, it will be very interesting to see where the storm totals end up over the next couple of days. There’s been a nice recovery of snowpack at the Mt. Mansfield Stake, as of this evening there’s been about 3.5 inches of liquid equivalent from this storm, and the snowpack at the stake is back up to almost 50 inches. This storm system has really felt like a classic Pacific Northwest-style dump though, with heavy valley rains, and lower elevation wet snow gradually morphing into dry, but still dense snow at elevation. I can certainly say that when I got back to the house this morning, my ski clothes felt like they’d taken a trip to the Pacific Northwest, and a good period of drying was definitely in order. They’re ready to go out into the storm again though, and so am I.
The sky cleared out for us yesterday at Stowe to produce some excellent spring skiing, but with snowfall on the way for tonight, this morning’s clouds were expected to stick around and the prospects for soft snow didn’t seem quite as good today. Due to the potentially marginal snow conditions, E and the boys chose not to head to the mountain, but I decided to stop in for a couple of afternoon runs to get in a quick workout and see what the slopes offered. The main parking lot at Mt. Mansfield wasn’t nearly as full as what we saw yesterday, but there were still a good number of cars there when I arrived in the mid afternoon.
Roughly halfway up my first ride on the Fourrunner Quad, flakes began to appear in the air, and it snowed lightly on and off all the way to the top. At the summit of the Quad I took in the views, and all around, the higher summits were disappearing with the onset of the light snowfall. I figured I’d warm up with a run on the Ridge View/Sunrise/Tyro/Crossover/Dalton combination that we’d been skiing with the boys over the past couple of visits, and it was immediately apparent that temperatures had not reached that critical threshold for snow softening in the higher elevations today. The main surfaces were refrozen granular, and while there had been some loose, sandy piles of granular snow kicked up and pushed together in places due to skier traffic, these areas were too few and far between. Skiing in the upper elevations definitely required some significant contact with the frozen granular surfaces, and I definitely did not have the edges for that. Around the elevation of the Sunrise/Tyro junction the snow began to soften somewhat and the piles of loose granular became more plentiful, but it still wasn’t possible to get continuous turns on soft snow. I called E when I got down to Crossover and let her know that she and the boys had made the perfect decision to stay home today. The snow got softer still down on Dalton, but so much of the route had been a tilted ice rink that the route didn’t seem like it was worth another run.
Skier traffic had actually been reasonably heavy on that route, presumably because a lot of people had been skipping the steeper terrain due to the slick conditions. It had made the skiing even more challenging though, because one had to navigate around other skiers and riders, further limiting the options to get to any soft snow. With that in mind, I decided to go for one more run and take one of the alternate routes. From the summit I opted for Lord Loop, which was similar to Ridge View in consistency, but it had nobody else on it and I was able to head wherever I wanted in order to get the best snow. I then stopped at the top of Centerline and looked down – the bumps looked really good, so good that I figured it would be worth dealing with some slick spots to check them out. It was the wrong decision; after a few Telemark turns, when I was already in too far to change my route, I found out just how hard the snow was. As the slope steepened, I went from Telemark turns, to occasional Telemark turns, to alpine turns, to “get me the hell of this frozen egg carton before I kill myself!” The bump lines were so tight and appealing looking too, but the snow was just too nasty. Alpine skis would have made life much easier, but it still would have been more hassle than it was worth.
I got myself down onto North Slope, and worked the best I could to ride the berms of sand-like granular snow along the edges of the trail. Access to this type of snow gradually increased as I descended, and I was able to burn out my legs pretty well with lots of tight turns thanks to those soft lines. The final descent of North Slope above Crossover and on to Dalton’s was the best part of the run, and I pushed my legs hard enough with very short radius Telemark turns that I felt good calling it an afternoon. I’d seen enough of what was available, and had enough close calls and unnerving situations with the Teles on the upper mountain, that leaving was easy. As I skied down the last slope to the lodge, I heard a guy mention to his friend that he was going to see if he could turn in his ticket and get a refund or voucher. I don’t blame him, since with the combination of terrain and conditions probably put the day in that bottom 10% for the season.
I’d definitely call today a rather inauspicious ending to Stowe’s lift-served ski season, in what was certainly an inauspicious season for snowfall (it looks like Stowe’s final snowfall tally will be 211 inches, which is just 63% of normal). Back at home, E had commented that we’d had a nice sunny spring day with good snow yesterday, and today wasn’t really going to top it; she was happy to end on yesterday’s note and that’s a good day to have for the last of Stowe’s lift-served skiing. I’m happy with the workout I got today, and glad I coupled the trip to the mountain with the grocery shopping that had to be done, but folks who didn’t make it out you really didn’t miss much. These sort of firm conditions certainly happen on cool, gray days in the spring, but normally we’d have a few weeks left to catch up on some more soft conditions due to powder or sun. Stowe’s early closing almost seems like it’s a manifestation of the collective psyche of the skiers, who appear to be finishing off the season earlier than usual, intent on putting 2011-2012 behind them. Other local areas are certainly staying open for a while though, so we’ll see where our ski travels take us next.
Morning clouds cleared away to provide sunshine for spring skiing today at Stowe.
Temperatures have been fairly seasonable over the past week, with a couple rounds of light snow in the mountains to produce some small powder days on Monday and Friday. Today dawned sort of gray with a snowstorm passing to our south, but the clouds gradually dissipated, the temperatures rose to around 50 F at the house, and we decided to head off to Stowe for some afternoon runs. We’d been eyeing the forecast in the morning and it had seemed really iffy in terms of getting warm enough to soften the slopes, but eventually it became obvious that even the mountains were going to get there.
Recent snows still visible in the Mt. Mansfield alpine today
En route to the resort we caught some views of Mt. Mansfield, and you could still see the signs of yesterday’s snow in the alpine. Indeed, even in some shady spots down below 1,000’ in elevation, vestiges of the recent snow were still hanging around. We opted for the Mansfield Base Lodge again as we’d done last Sunday, but the parking lot was nothing like what we’d seen then; it was obvious that it was a Saturday and the weather was nice, because the main lot was packed. Temperatures were in the 40s F, and the sun was out, so folks were all around the mountain and parking lots having a good time.
The boys working together on their turns
We worked with the boys on their Telemark Skiing using the same Ridge View/Sunrise/Tyro/Crossover combination that we’d skied last weekend. With the beautiful weather, the skier traffic was much higher today than what we’d encountered on Sunday, and that changed a couple of things. The terrain got a little more bumped up, which gave the boys some opportunities to try some Telemark turns through the moguls. Dialing in Telemark turns through the moguls requires quick footwork and good transitions, but the boys are at least getting to the stage in their progression that they can piece together some good segments. Dylan had a fall at one point that actually cracked his goggles a bit, so it looks like he’ll be able to get some fancy new ones like his brother. We even discovered that yesterday’s powder was around in areas off the edges of the trails. It had often thickened (and become good for building snowballs as we tested) but it was pretty nice in spots and it was refreshing to get a few floaty turns.
The downside of the nice weather was the increase in skier traffic to Stowe-like levels, which was unfortunately exacerbated by the reduced terrain options. Even sticking to the moderately-pitched routes, there were way too many people skiing way too fast for comfort. Ty and Dylan are definitely well into that intermediate stage with their Telemark turns, and while the terrain was perfect for them, the number of people straight-lining the slopes is really incompatible with kids trying to work on the larger radius turns that are common at their stage of learning. We had a few close calls, but fortunately no collisions.
Eventually the Quad shut down for the day and we had to call it an afternoon. Back in the Mansfield Base Lodge we got to listen to the après ski band they had playing. It’s been kind of nice visiting the scene there; it’s really the old school alternative to the Spruce Camp Base Lodge. On the way home we checked in at some of the ski shops on the Mountain Road for a new pair of goggles for Dylan, and stopped for dinner at the Crop Bistro & Brewery, which is the new restaurant where The Shed used to be located. The caliber of the food appears to be a bump up from The Shed’s offerings, and not surprisingly, the prices have increased to match. As anyone who has been up the mountain road in the past several months has seen, the exterior of the building has been changed from the red of The Shed to a more yellowish color, and the interior has been all redesigned as well. They’ve gone with that “contemporary rustic” style, and have included several impressive (and large) photographs of the Vermont countryside from one of the local photographers. The overall feel of the Crop actually reminds me a lot of the Farmhouse Tap & Grill in Burlington, featuring high-quality food that is locally sourced as much as possible and really showcases what the local agriculture has to offer.
Homemade sauces at the Crop Bistro & Brewery
I had an amazing pasta special with nuts, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, and a spectacular sauce. E had a cheeseburger, which was accompanied by some of their homemade sauces, and we all shared an appetizer of bread, honey, nuts, and an assortment of local Vermont cheeses. The boys got the grilled cheese, which was made with Cabot Cheddar. Price wise, the Crop doesn’t seem like it’s quite going to be the place that The Shed was for popping in for meals off the bike path, but the locavore approach is nice to see, and the food we had was really good, so it’s a nice addition to the dining options in Stowe.
Stowe is planning to make tomorrow their last day running the lifts, and it seems to be mostly due to the lack of interest from skiers. There’s supposed to be some additional snow coming in later in the day tomorrow, but we’ll have to see what the clouds and potentially cooler temperatures do to the snow surfaces, and whether it’s worth heading out for the resort’s last lift-served day this season.
