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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!

Really fun day. Sunnier than the forecast predicted, amazing snow. ROTD for me was Main st. Was a bit crowded late morning but has really thinned out. I quit my job and am moving to Vermont! So I celebrated today by enjoying a great Friday at Blue.