Tag: Powder

Posted on

Sugarbush, VT 23NOV1997

Today, the Sugarbush ski patrol continued applying the same liberal policy that we experienced yesterday with regard to opening trails; if they felt there was enough natural snow to ski them, they just opened them, and today they added Birdland to the mix. We got some of the first “legal” tracks there, which were actually far from the first ones put down on the trail, but they were still quite enjoyable. We followed right behind the ski patroller opening up Birdland as he worked his way down while closing off the side trails; it was certainly fun, and all legal-like. Ski patrol also opened up the North Lynx lift line (bottom 3/4) but it will need some time to bump up for those interested in skiing the great mogul lines that can develop there. Despite today being the canned-food day promotion, crowds weren’t bad at all, since the mountain just kept opening more and more terrain basically as fast as they could get the patrollers to stamp the water bars, close off side trails, and check the padding around the poles (so it seemed). My trail pick of the day, and in fact the whole weekend, would have to be Birch Run off of North Lynx; there was natural snow plus some real nice manmade, and lots of fun terrain without big crowds. All the other members of our Sunday ski posse (Tom “Mango Madness” Bursey, Chris, and E) gave it high ratings. I’m glad North Lynx has had a bit of a revival in the past few years, because there’s some real fun terrain over there. Similar to yesterday, the powder continued to be a bit on the denser side, but that also meant that there was plenty of substance for keeping one afloat. Snowfall continued to fall like Saturday, and it essentially seemed to snow all weekend on and off with a few inches each day.

Even though Mad River Glen isn’t open yet, a lot of people are earning their turns there, and that’s certainly a sign of our current November snow situation – Mark Renson sent in his report from the mountain today as he toured around, and it didn’t sound bad at all. Other reports I’ve seen from today include Jeff Strait’s report from Stratton; I don’t have any experience with skiing Stratton, but based on his comments, apparently even that far south people are skiing the glades. I also saw a brief report from Smuggler’s Notch today by Vickie Backus; there wasn’t too much info about the off piste snow, but she did say she skied on a natural snow trail

I hope everyone can get out for some turns over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday; get those legs moving because the best pre-season workout for skiing is… skiing!

Woohoo!

Posted on

Sugarbush, VT 22NOV1997

Well, the first thing I’d like to say about today is that I love the new Sugarbush policy of opening trails as soon as they can (I was told that they were emphasizing opening trails this year whenever possible). Patrol opened Spillsville, along with Lower Paradise plus some others that I can’t recall. The coverage was all natural and plenty rocky, but at least they gave us the choice. The powder was pretty heavy, but floatable and it seemed to snow on and off with a few inches of accumulation. Not surprisingly, it sounds like the situation is similar at Jay Peak, with Mark Renson indicating powder up to his knees and even some open tree skiing areas in his report to SkiVT-L. There’s only 15” of snow at the Mt. Mansfield stake as of today’s report, which seems a bit on the lean side to be jumping into the woods per the 24-inch rule, but since we’re talking about Jay Peak, it’s very possible they’ve had a bit more snow than other areas. In any event, Jay Peak patroller Walter Pomroy certainly confirmed the ability to hit the woods in his SkiVT-L report; he was able to go into some areas like Timbuktu and Kitz Woods that are still officially closed, but just like our experienced at Sugarbush today, he spoke of the benefit of the somewhat dense snow, although he still recommended rock skis. Even farther to the south, people were getting off piste; in Dave Barcomb’s report from Killington today, he also indicated that they were skiing the woods, so there is definitely some good early season coverage out there. It’s great to be able to get into the trees before we even hit Thanksgiving; this is two to three weeks ahead of average based on the mean date of roughly December 12th for hitting the 24-inches of depth at the Mt. Mansfield Stake that typically supports initial forays into the trees.

Posted on

Robbins Mountain Power Line, VT 30DEC1995

Today we skied the power line on Robbins Mountain (power for the airway beacon on top).  Here are the stats:

Base elevation: 340′
Summit elevation: 2060′
Vertical drop: 1720′
Length: 5544′
Slope: 31%

After kicking in steps yesterday evening (snowshoeless are we) to 1,100′, we hiked up to around 1,350′ today with skis. Unfortunately, above this point, the line hasn’t been cleared in a couple of years and its pretty thick with brush. Below this point though, its clear sailing, about 40 feet wide and untracked. The snow conditions were about 5 inches powder followed by that crust, then another 2-3 feet of thick powder below. From our starting point, the first 200 feet down are a little brushy (a la Goat) then the trail funnels into a 50 foot chute with steep drops on either side. After this chute, the line opens up for about 200 feet of blue-grade boulevard untracked (one of the best parts). The next 1,000′ consists of a few cliffs (5-10 feet high and easily bypassed if desired) with islands of brush that leave at least half of the trail open at a all times. At this point (elevation 700′) the main power line takes a dive into a stream bed, but fortunately there is a road, or riverbed or something that parallels the line and provides a nice clear route. The last 100 feet or so is a bit of a scramble out the road. Temps were in the 20s and light snow was falling today making for great conditions. 1,000 continuous vertical of untracked powder at no charge; sometimes it’s nice to earn turns by muscle instead of $$$$.

Posted on

Stowe, VT 10DEC1995

Shawshank tells me that the lifts at Stowe will start running at an incredible 7:00 A.M for Sunday. OK, I’ll be there bright and early. Recording a possible record arrival, I get myself to the quad before 7:30 and find it humming right along with people returning from runs. After a warm-up attempt to get some freshies on Liftline/National, I ran into Andor & co. right in line. The rest of the morning consisted of Goat, Queebs, traverse, learn, Chin Clip, Goat?, Starr, Starr or something like that. I found myself happily buried more than once. At lunch we met up with Shawshank, ate some food and went back at it. Shawshank reported a multitude of freshies on hayride earlier in the day, so awaaaaaaaaaay we go. In my head and body I’m thinkin’ “Gawd I’m tired, a couple more runs should do it for me, I mean 7 something A.M was a long time ago.” Whoops look what we found, more fresh woods. Any thoughts of leaving were gone as we plowed our way through virtually untracked freshies on “Oh Shit”, “Major Jones”, and others. By connecting everything right, we had found top to bottom fresh woods off the quad “Who could leave?” The stake near “Oh shit” read 3 feet, 6 inches of snow and I whole heartedly believe it. When it finally became too dangerous to ski anymore, we called it. Through the magic of powder, I had managed to reel in over 30,000 vertical without ever realizing it. Now that’s a drug.

OK, back to reality. There was a harsh wind blowing up top, 0 degrees air temp + wind = -38 degree w.c.  The wind was also blowing some of the snow off the trails and exposing the ice underneath (more reason to stay off-trail). Lines were a bit long in the noonish hours, even the gondola had a line. I don’t know about the big streambed, but a lot of little ones are still visibly flowing, maybe from all the insulating snow. More poachers getting nabbed on lower lift line, Lookout wasn’t open (100%?) and the Tollhouse lift wasn’t running.

(A friend of mine ended up there on his first day of snowboarding, apparently crossing no ropes, and had to get a ride back. The guy who gave him the ride said “Yeah, that’s been happening a lot today” ?What’s up with that?)

But I’m certainly not complaining.

Next weekend I’m skiing in NH “yikes” and I’ll send in one of those “out of state” reports

J. “There’s skiing in other states too” Spin