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October 24 and I still don't have a pass for this year. Not sure I'm going to buy one; weird. I heard that Epic pass sales have increased by some insane amount over last year. And last year I barely used mine because resorts were so horribly crowded. Plus, my work schedule changed so that I can mostly only ski weekends, so...ugh. The two resorts near me (Okemo and Sunapee) are notoriously awful on weekends. I think I may just earn my turns on the local mountain. Dog knows I need the exercise. Plus when there's fresh snow I really enjoy hiking up and snowboarding down. Maybe I'll do that and just see what sort of cheap day passes I can score when I want some lift service? If it's a shite snow year I may change my mind on the passes, but for now I'm freewheelin' into the season with no commitment! Yikes! Will report back on how it goes! Killington is making snow already, though it's been a lovely long, warm autumn up here.

No pics right now, but to add more stoke, our new snowblower arrived today...positive vibes for a snowy winter

Ski season up here took its time arriving then dumped four feet on us all at once and it was so much snow you couldn't move the first day. For a few days all the backcountry rock stars from up around Stowe were down here in little ol' Brownsville because Ascutney got hammer-slammered with powder in a storm that didn't go much further north than White River Junction. You never saw so many Sprinter vans and Labrador retrievers in our parking lot. Then two weeks later it rained and washed ALL of that snow away and that's how Vermont winter rolls. Then February arrived and kept giving and giving and it was amazing. Nobody could stand the Epic-Pass lines at Okemo (even weekdays were nuts) so we did lots of AT skiing on Ascutney. I work 24-hour shifts and have way more days off than my friends, so I taught myself to snowboard. Got some snowshoes and earned my turns and bruised my tailbone. I can ride a T-bar on the board no problem but still can't figure out how to get off a chairlift without it looking like a disaster from an I Love Lucy episode. I'm drinking coffee this morning and waiting for the New Yorkers to go home so I can get in some springy-soft runs at Okemo this afternoon. Here are some random pics from this season: One day it was all glare ice on Ascutney after some rain, and we were all bummed not to be able to ski. Then around 3pm the guy who runs the groomer decided to make some passes, so we followed him around for a little sunset touring and fresh corduroy: N The community T-bar runs until 4pm weekends then it clears out fast. I had a firepit and a whole powdery mountain to myself lots of evenings. Skinning up near the top of Ascutney is great fun and the snow was unbelievable last month: I retired from teaching and work as an EMT for a fire department, so I drive a fire engine now. This is so much more fun than grading papers and I have five days off every week!

This is grate! I'll be staying in a hotel house, haven't started looking yet. Northern Lights Lodge is decent and cheap but the owner wouldn't refund my non-refundable $318 a few years ago so I'm not sure about staying there again just on principle.

@saltyant- I’m down for Stowe!! I have epic this season. I’ve been looking for a 1-2 ish week Airbnb in January but I haven’t finalized anything.

@saltyant- I’m down for Stowe!! I have epic this season. I’ve been looking for a 1-2 ish week Airbnb in January but I haven’t finalized anything.

yeah, that sale was hot garbage. Very little selection in anything but used rental skis. Not a wasted trip either tho, because I was able to (after some mild insistence) get Grayson’s child season pass purchased. Pops and I then went over to Buckman’s where I found nice deals on a new jacket and pants for Walter

Thanks. I ended up going. @enjoralas and pops were in the house. The tent sale itself was kind of a bust. But I did end up getting these in true blue.

Yesterday we started the morning climbing Looking Glass Arch. I have been to this area before but opted out of the climbing due to the 120’ free rappel. I decided it was time to suck it up and try. It’s a 3 pitch 350’ climb on fairly easy rock. The crux is the first 6’ getting off the ground. I lost my footing here tried to catch myself and put some nice holes in my puffy, womp womp. this is the 3rd pitch where it gets much less vertical. I had a full on meltdown at the top waiting to rappel and cried my eyes out then we drove to another area and started working on climbing cracks. Really fucking hard! I was not able to get more than 10’ off the ground with much effort Shannon killed it and made the top the technique in the chimney was a bit easier. Gonna do all cracks today and hopefully get done a bit earlier so we can go to the rec center and take a shower.