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Awesome - you are right on the access road. There is a free bus that will shuttle you right to the mountain. Your first day I think you will have to start on the Spruce side of the street and get your Stowe card. Then after that you can go right to the lifts. And you are a 1/2 mile from the Matterhorn. Best Apres spot there. Great food too. Don't be freaked out that they are serving sushi in a hard core locals bar - it's excellent. Matterhorn Bowl is the best. Pizza and appetizers are great too. And they have live music most nights. Awesome place. The Shed is the bar at the base of the Forerunner Quad and that's the best on- mountain bar. If I were staying on the access road and was using the bus, I would end every day at the Shed, then take the Bus to the Matterhorn for an appetizer and beer, then hotel and head out to town for dinner. Do you enjoy beer? As mentioned, don't miss the Bench. Best beer menu around. If you are overwhelmed, Hill Farmstead is IMO the best beer on tap in northern Vt. 'Edward' is their pale ale and it's great. If you like shuffle board, go to the Roost. If you don't mind a 20 minute drive, dinner at Waterbury - which you will pass through on your way to Stowe. Prohibition Pig is exceptionally good BBQ and again, killer beer menu. I'd skip the Ben and Jerry's tour - we did it this winter. Kind of lame. Excuse me if I mis-read your skiing, but if you are looking for mellower blacks, in addition to the aforementioned tails off the Quad and Gondola, Whirlaway - if open - and Smugglers off the Sensation Quad, and also on the lift - Sterling is a great blue trail. If you need to check one of the front four off your list, and you are feeling intimidated (again, I apologize if I am mis reading your skiing - I don't mean to insult) Lift Line is often groomed on the skier's left side, and honestly after the head wall and first two pitches, it's a pretty normal trail. The head wall is crazy steep, but you know....just slid down that SOB.... You can also try your hand at lower national off liftline - which, if there is snow - will be wall to wall bumps, but a mellower pitch compared to upper national. Goat is probably my favorite trail in the world, and really, just a quintessential New England ski trail - if the snow is soft, and you are up for it....might be worth giving it a go...maybe skip upper goat (if it's open - it often isn't) and slide through the trees at the top of the Lifeline head wall. 9 times of 10, that's the start the trail as upper is usually closed. It's as steep as lifeline, but 1/4 as wide, and always bumped side to side. So, you can kind of get a sense of what you are in for if you ski the groomed half of liftline. But really, there is so much great blue and mellow black terrain at Stowe - just an absurd amount really....Perry Merril, Gondolier, Sunrise, Nose Dive, Chin Clip....so many great cruisers. On mountain food - Spruce lodge has great food - both variety and quality. But gets wicked crowded. The Octagon a the top of the Quad is very good, and often a bit less jammed. I've never eaten at the top of the Gondi - the cliff house I think it's called. But it's a sit down affair. Skip the lodge at the base of the quad for food - kind of lame and jammed most days. Have fun man - Stowe is an incredible mountain and a really, really fun town. And +1 on the cooler and Heady Topper and Focal Banger. Their Crusher is also an incredibly good, and smooth drinking, 9% ABV double IPA. They have a bunch of other beers now, but HT and FB are still my favorites. Sorry for the long post. I love that place.

Team PaSki&Ride.com with the come from behind victory in a tie breaker final round! Being a theme park geek paid off for the tiebreaker round of acronyms, no one else knew EPCOT.

I'm the same way. I have a pair of shoes I wear to work that I've had since 9th grade (I'm 37). I'm not very big into fancy shit and status symbols. Would rather spend my money on travel, beer and fun. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

16" last 24 hours. Boom. Expect the Hobers to be open!

Are you glued to your monitors watching snowfall on that intersection in the middle of Jackson Hole and counting days until your flight? I'm trying to memorize the major zones in the Arlberg ski area that we'll be leaving for this Saturday. Have never skied in that part of Alps and can only anticipate things based on friends' feedback and various reviews. The area is huge. The fact that it's hard to find online maps of all individual zones isn't helping at all. Roughly it's divided into the very busy, popular and advanced St. Anton, more intermediate-friendly and less busy Zurs+Lech+Oberlech, quiet Warth+Shrocken and a Sonnenkopf, which can only be reached from St. Anton by bus. The villages are all scattered around 4000ft elevation, the peaks in the St. Anton area can reach 9200ft, but generally stay around 7500ft. The easiest Warth+Shrocken have a 1800ft vertical. At St. Anton the vertical is about 4900ft. The skiing areas are all connected (except for Sonnenkopf), and like Sella Ronda in Italy, they have a circular route here called White Ring that one can take to tour Lech-Oberlech-Zug-Zurs in one day. Except that if Sella Ronda is about 40km long, here it's more like 20km, and so we should be done with it in half a day. You basically hop on a lift, ski down, hop on a second lift, ski down, etc until you make a complete circle and come back to where you've started. From what we've gathered when we planned this trip last year, St. Anton is the most expensive area with lodging that costs several $K per accommodation per week. The price is driven by its popularity, difficulty of the trails and intensity of night life. People on a budget tend to stay in nearby Lech or even Sonnenkopf, with the latter having a big disadvantage of being disconnected from the rest of the skiing area. We picked Warth as the smallest and the quietest connected village of all. Price-wise it's somewhere in the middle. The 2BR apartments for a week cost us around $900. During summer it's possible to drive from Warth to Lech and then farther south to St. Anton, in winter this road is closed. This would make Warth disconnected from the rest of the resort, but a few years ago they've finished a lift that can be used to expand from Warth+Shrocken area into Lech, Zurs and then farther to St. Christof, St. Anton and finally Sonnenkopf. We'll have to continuously keep track of time to make sure we can always ski back to Warth, for otherwise we'll get stuck for night in a place with no easy way of getting back "home". The plan is to ski for 6 days, weather permitting, and take a small break in the middle to drive to Neuschwanstein castle. The skipass is gonna cost €280, plus the rent will be about half of that. Now, that's when I'll get to hand-flex all those Austrian Kastles any way I want! Warth+Shrocken: http://www.ultimate-ski.com/ski-resorts/austria/bregenzerwald/warth-schroecken/ski-area.aspx Lech+Zurs: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ski/resort-guides/Ski-Lech-resort-guide/ St. Anton: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ski/resort-guides/Ski-St-Anton-resort-guide/ Sonnenkopf: http://www.ultimate-ski.com/ski-resorts/austria/vorarlberg/sonnenkopf.aspx White Ring: https://www.skiarlberg.at/en/regions/ski-area/lech-oberlech-zuers/the-white-ring Map: These maps are difficult to read because they try to show perspective, but this ends up distorting the scale of the resorts in the back. E.g. Warth+Schroken in the top-right corner of the picture above actually look like this on a dedicated map. And hey, do I see three peaks here as well? MC for sure!

Sorry, I forgot what an expert skier you are.

Just over 36 hours until wheels up. Start getting your ride to the mountain playlists organized. For me.. For PARidge For Nastar Glenn For JFDan For MBike Mike For Atomic Jeff And for NMSki

That happens often enough that you have a policy!?

TWSS!

Probably. Or else there are ponds in each trough.

Man. You're doing it wrong.

Why don't you two just text each other? This constant shit is getting old.

Why are you wearing Lady Gaga glasses?

In theory, the sticker might add to the structural integrity of the helmet, and .170 microns of extra cushioning.

Supposed to turn a direct hit into a glancing blow sort of, but having a slipping layer inside the main helmet. http://mipsprotection.com/technology/ I don't know how much better, if any, it is than a regular helmet but I decided I wanted the best protection I could get and figured it couldn't hurt.

Fixed it for you.

You slid down so whatever

BM responded to the bumps on Chute request, so I added a response to theirs about the collision. Hopefully that'll invoke some action.

I'd rather ride Mountain Creek and Camelback in the same day.

Bahahaha they look just like Nazareth Jays wife's Prada sunglasses lol I'm laughing so hard..thanks for that!!

i would think the other person feels horrible, or worse, about the entire situation.

I feel like there is an easier way to lay that pipe

Feel free to test their statistics, but I'm wearing one. At least I'm beyond that age demographic, but it doesn't make me any smarter at the speeds and places I ski.

I was there Sunday night and skied Razor's; they did open it in the evening after the races were done.

The hobacks are open. Boom.

I'm gonna be spending my winters in the Rockies in the next few years. I just need to save a little more money. My retirement in about 11ish years will likely be spent all over the place.

Blue skies breaking through!

A couple people in line for the gondola. Lifts open in a minute.

Bahahahaha shots fired.

Why do you care? Froniter doesn't fly there . . .

Ok

Tuned in for recommendations for next year!

Holy shit. Multiple European TRs within a two week span? Take that Alpine zone!

I stopped by on my last European Delivery.

Yes. Also my retirement plan.

Wow I figured you flew to Colorado. Way to get after it. When I eventually spend my ski seasons out west I'll have to drive out west again..

You make plenty of money. Get a real phone. It doesn't even have to be an iPhone X...an 8 will do.

I was just thinking about the stickers. I'm not big on replacing things. I've had the same desk chair since 2004 and my dad was saying it needs to be replaced because it's worn out and I said maybe in a few years lol.

Indiggio is not gonna like this...

Same. Couple of years ago I spent three months in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Neurology ICU watching a family member recover from a traumatic brain injury from falling off a step ladder. Ditched my then-current helmet and got one with MIPS in it.

"The increase in the number of people who wear helmets hasn’t resulted in fewer fatalities. Helmets are designed to protect riders at about 12 mph, while a skier or snowboarder who collides with a tree or another rider is typically going 25 to 40 mph." Source: http://unofficialnetworks.com/2017/03/26/7-surprising-facts-ski-deaths-injuries/

What are captains wafers. Gimme a second. Oh Lordy that's not a meal it's something you put in your soup lol.

I remember my boys as elementary schoolers shooting in and out of all the little rabbit holes off of midway while I acted as a spotter for oncoming traffic. I always ended those runs with a “don’t tell your Mom” admonishment which always elicited smiles from them. I love the history of east coast skiing. Meatheads “Epoch” is a must see for anyone interested in the early days of ice coast skiing!

My suggestion to Salty is to not take the bus..it stops at a ton of places and with Salty arriving for opening at 730ish he'll get front row parking and be able to ski back to his car. Salty doesn't drink beer suggestions are a waste of bandwidth. I agree with goat and whirlaway being nice runs. Also lookout under the lookout double to the skiers right of Starr is nice.

It's the shit that's the problem!

Be sure to hit "The Bench" restaurant for some Putin! Also, take a cooler with you and stop at The Alchemist and bring us back some Heady Topper and Focal Banger!

Looks like 3 solid nights of making snow Wednesday through Friday night. Hopefully they blow enough on Barney’s to reseed for this weekend. Also bump up chute too [emoji120]

No offense but you don't understand skiing, skiing has almost nothing to do with numbers, how fast, how much vert is all entirely meaningless bullshit. There is skiing as a lifestyle and skiing as a sport and your not even doing the later. Skiing is about the turn, i don't give a fuck if I do 60mph if I didn't ski at 60mph the right way, your technique is pure survival, what can I do with my skis to get down X. Useful, fun to an extent but if you want for it to get real interesting you gotta get the ski up on edge. Skiing, at least if you do it right, isn't also always about skiing. When you understand it as a lifestyle its about the people you ride with, the time spent with people you like fucking around skiing or drinking beers, being outside in nature and sometimes lots of time alone thinking about whatever. It keeps you grounded and connected, it's not an escape from the rest of life and it's bullshit but it puts it in proper place. If your bored your not pushing yourself and you aren't doing skiing the right way.

I like a nice marathon session once in a while, though. I stayed at Blue yesterday past dark. The Eagles fans cleared out so there were NO crowds or lines and the snow was great. I took a long-ish break at one point, but basically was having a lot of fun so I didn't want to stop. Every run I was working on something (turning from the legs, hand/arm position, bumps, etc.) so it never got boring. It was great because with so many runs I could see and feel real improvement. I just rocked out to music or listened to podcasts on the lift so that wasn't boring, either, and when I got home I fell asleep hard and slept well. That was awesome, too.