Stowe 4-9 & 4-10 TR

[riderossi]

After deciding around Monday or Tuesday of last week that we were going to head up to Vermont for the weekend we decided on Stowe and staying at the Stowe Mountain Lodge. My Girlfriend wasn't suppose to get out of work until 6 p.m. Friday so we were going to have a long late night ahead of us. Thankfully her boss let her go early so we loaded up the bags and boards and hit the road at 1:15 pm.

 

We were making decent time until nearing Albany, NY. Everybody was getting out of work and the traffic was a bit crazy...no big deal. Then the construction sign on the side of the highway reads " RT 4 to Vermont closed, use alternate route". We didn't have an alternate route so we trucked on and thankfully there were no closures on RT 4 to be found.

 

We arrived at Stowe around 8 p.m. where the the Valet workers and bellhops certainly made us feel at home as they proceeded to unload the car and bring our things to the room, and our boards to the mountains "ski valet".

 

(Blurry picture sorry)

 

 

We watched a bit of TV and then retired early, a bit worn out from the ride. We awoke at 7 a.m. to this view from our room:

 

 

We were planning on getting out to the lifts for 8 a.m. as we received bum info from the mountains information line saying the the lifts would start turning at 8, the quad opened at 7:30. No bid deal there. 90+ trails planned for the day. We went down to the ski valet where they placed our boards outside on a rack while we laced up ( the took it upon themselves to clean my girlfriends white boots while they were checked in. We made our way out to the Over Easy gondola:

 

 

We hit of the FourRunner quad and then headed over to Toll Road for an awesome top to bottom run, but the grooming was a bit sketchy on the upper half.

 

By the time we made it back up to Toll Road for a second run ( my girlfriend is still in the learning process) the snow had softened up so much that one or two parts required some hopping to get over the flats. At the point we headed up the FourRunner again and took NoseDive down to the Gondola. NoseDive was a fun run, that I enjoyed a lot.

 

We hopped on the Gondola and made a first run down Gondolier as the snow was really starting to soften up. We made a few laps on the Gondola then headed over to FourRunner again, which by now was slammed. We took one run then headed back to the Over Easy gondola and up the Sunny Spruce Quad. Upper Spruce Peak was closed unfortunately. By this time the snow was super slow and my girlfriend wasn't able to make it up 2 of the inclines on Spruce so we headed back over to the Gondola to finish off the day. Still 0 lift line at the Gondola which was awesome.

 

We hit up FourRunner and had lunch at the lodge up top as they were grilling on the deck and it smelled way too good to pass up...the view wasn't bad either:

 

 

When we got back to the hotel we hit up the outdoor heated pool and Jacuzzi. Quite the experience to be swimming with snow all around you and a view of the mountain covered in snow in the background

 

We called for our car and headed down the mountain road for the Matterhorn which was like a scene out of the movie Out Cold. The place was packed and they were having a benefit for Olympic gold medalist Bill Johnson who was also there (he suffered a bad brain injury years later). We had some pizza, played some pool, and headed back to the hotel for another round in the pool.

 

Day Two - Sunday.

 

Sunday started off much in the same way with some runs on Toll Road.

 

We stayed on the FourRunner for a couple more runs since it got so slammed late in the day on Saturday. We took some runs down some Blues, whose names escape me, and then headed over to the Gondola again. Again the snow was super soft and heavy and the sun was out full force. I ended up getting sun burn on my neck and face but oh well.

 

We took plenty of runs down the Cliff Trail, which my GF found fun, and I hit up the woods along side it the whole way down.

 

 

 

Headed back the the FourRunner for a run down Upper National, which was bumped up to all hell, and then all the way down Liftline.

 

National Glades down to Upper National off of Upper Liftline:

 

 

The GF did well without falling at all and I had a blast in the bumps. By that point in the day my legs were tired so we decided not to tempt anymore bumps and headed back over to the Gondola for a final run around 12:30pm since we still had to drive home. The hotel let us have a late check out of 2 p.m. instead of 11a.m. since we were going to snowboard in the morning and nobody was checking into our room after us.

 

All in all it was a great weekend, we couldn't have asked for better weather or conditions. There wasn't one bare spot on the entire mountain (not including Spruce) except for a rock or two under the lift lines, but the terrain was still covered enough for the trails to still be open. It was good timing also because after Sunday the Gondola was shutting down. On Monday there were only 60 some trails open.

 

We will be making another trip again next year.

[vinnyv11]

Stowe sounds like a great trip. My only issue with them is every time I look the pricing seems so much higher than the rest of vermont.

[riderossi]

Yeah they are pretty pricey. We ended up getting 20% off our second night for the hotel through Orbitz, and I also hunted down a coupon code for %10 off, so we saved over $50 on the hotel just with the coupon code alone.

 

The lift tickets were also only $45 or $46 plus the discount on the second day for buying the multi-day ticket. That's a damn good price on the lift tickets considering almost everything was open. If the lift tickets had still been around $90 we probably wouldn't have stayed at the Stowe mountain lodge.

[toast21602]

good stuff.

[RootDKJ]

Stowe sounds like a great trip. My only issue with them is every time I look the pricing seems so much higher than the rest of vermont.

 

Get a Stowe points card. You too GSS.

[Ride Delaware ?]

Get a Stowe points card. You too GSS.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but the points card doesn't reset year to year either right? Its good for a lifetime, or until they change the rules...

[Ride Delaware ?]

Didn't someone say you get one with your Blue Mountain Season Pass?

[Ride Delaware ?]

So shouldn't you already have one? Or have you just not gone through the effort of actually receiving it?