Bromley 12-19-10

[Ride Delaware ?]

I'll try not to bore you with details, but two of my friends and I decided to go snowsporting at Killington the 20th to the 23rd so that we could be home for Christmas. We needed to help a mutual friend of ours move in to her new apartment on Saturday, so we left from the Villanova area after moving her in around 4 PM. We traveled to one of my friend's grandparent's houses who live in North Bennington, VT, and arrived around 9:30. Since we will be staying at Killington tonight through Wednesday night, we decided to try out something different. There are several mountains on the way north to Killington from North Bennington (Bromley, Magic, and Stratton), and based on price, terrain, and crowds, we decided on Bromley. We arrived at Bromley at 8:35 AM and quickly began to gear up. There were about 120 cars in the secondary lot, and by 8:50 we were on shuttle headed toward the base lodge. We bought our lift tickets for $65 and headed over to the high speed quad. They were making snow on several trails at the base and are hoping to open several more trails before the busy Christmas week. They were making snow on most of the trails to the left of the high speed quad, but not many on the right hand side. Most of the trails on the left are beginner trails while most of the trails on the right were expert trails. I'm not head of mountain ops, but I am assuming that since they market themselves as a family resort, they are trying to open the beginner terrain for the week after Christmas. Here is the first picture I took this morning of us walking toward the high speed quad:

 

 

I also took this picture first thing looking up the mountain from the base of the quad. There was plenty of manmade snow and excellently groomed corduroy:

 

 

We were blessed with blue bird skies, and as soon as we got off the lift, I noticed a beautiful sight across the valley. I quickly snapped this picture of Stratton blowing snow on the front face of the mountain:

 

 

We then headed to the backside of the mountain on the beginner trail Run Around. They had been making snow on it for several days, groomed it out a couple more, and opened it for the first time today. It had some of the best snow of the day and has an excellent pitch and length. It is definitely a bunch of fun with some nice little rollers to air off of. The top half of the mountain was coated in light snow and made the trees look spectacular:

 

 

After getting to the base, we headed back up the mountain and decided to take the intermediate run right underneath the lift. That run had the most traffic of the day and got scraped off fairly quickly... Especially on the headwall at the top. However, on this run, it was in excellent shape and let you turn on the speed a little bit:

 

 

On the next lift ride up, we took the time to turn around in the chair to see how many people had come in after us. Around 11 AM, about 2 hours after we arrived, only 20 cars had parked behind us, and we had yet to wait in a liftline. We got to the top and I looked to the left and saw Magic Mountain. They currently have 4 trails on and had snowmaking going all day on the upper portion of the mountain. They are doing their best with their limited infrastructure, and I applaud them. Here is the picture although it is a little farther off than Stratton:

 

 

Right before lunch we decided to try out Yodeler, which is an intermediate trail, and found some crazy snow whales. I snapped these pictures after lunch, but since I am talking about it now, I'll show them. The whales were pretty close together and the rollers were steep and fairly dangerous if you weren't paying attention and not checking your speed. However, there was fresh manmade on the sides of the trail that were creating some small bumps and made it easy to carve:

 

 

 

We stopped for lunch around noon, and after a quick bite of lunch, we headed back to the top of the mountain. We wanted to burn off some of the after lunch lethargy, and we decided to hit Run Around again. The snow was still in great shape, and while I don;t have another picture of the trail, I found this little path and outhouse in the woods. Looks like a great place for some of you guys to stop and discuss safety procedures

 

 

After several more runs repeating the above, we decided to head down the center of the mountain dow the liftline for one of our last runs. We found this to be fairly scraped off, but we found a side trail we hadn't hit. Heres a view at the end of the day:

 

 

Overall, it was a great day. I logged 24 runs and we ended up leaving about 3:30. It was nice to try out a new mountain and there were no crowds all day. We waited in a 10 chair liftline once. Other than that, there was no wait at the high speed quad. We arrived at Killington around 4:45, had our room by 5, and were out shopping in Rutland by 6. We will be awake at 8 to get first tracks tomorrow in the AM. I'll holla at you guys again tomorrow...

[Shadows]

i think stickyicky got banned

 

looks fun though. nice and sunny

great report. descriptive, pictures... what a report should be

[Barb]

I like Bromley, it has a completely relaxed atmosphere. And its usually much less crowded than Stratton. Also nice that all the trails lead to the lodge so you don't lose your kids.

 

Nice pics

[Johnny Law]

There are actually some nice tree sections at Bromley, if it dumps head over to Ascutney. You'll have to do some work but it will be worth it.

[Timeless]

Nice trip report, I always feel bad that I dont have enough pictures when I post,

 

Having driven past Bromley so many times on the way to other areas it's good to see some shots from there.

[AtomicSkier]

I've always enjoyed skiing Bromley. I managed to ski bromley on a blue bird pow day before heading back to PA (quick morning session). Nothing like the sun in your face...don't get that too much in the east

[AngryHugo]

great TR and great pics. you always deliver, Mr Delaware.