TR Stowe 2/11-2/14

[guitar73]

we had an awesome time at stowe last weekend. here's my TR; pictures to follow just as soon as i download them.

 

sat, 2/11: travel day. we left home around 10:20am, busted through NYC (no traffic!), and got to our b&b (auberge de stowe: $99/nite, located in the lower village, very nice owners, clean rooms, towels need replacing) around 5:45pm. didn't see any snow until we hit central VT....very wierd. my friends rob and scott were just a half hour or so behind us. we hit up dinner at this new place in town called o'grady's located on mountain rd. cool place, good brews, dinner's in the $15 pp neighborhood. i brought a bunch of brews up, so after dinner we retired to the b&b for some brewskis. called it an early nite.

 

sun, 2/12: ski day 1. first day can be summed up in one word; cold. stowe's website reported 2 degrees at the base, but the thermometer at the overeasy gondola definately read 0 degrees. temp at the summit was -10 deg (-35ish deg w/ windchill). needless to say we were all bundled up and spent most of the morning lapping the gondola area. snow conditions were fast and furious. all the snow was either blown or skiied off, revealing a bulletproof layer of ice and hardpack. skis were sticking to the snow. mrs guitar and i went over to spruce peak to see if there was better conditions there. the snow at spruce seemed to be much better than on mt mansfield. we did 2 or 3 runs over there and then headed in for lunch. after lunch we lapped the quad....that was a cold ride. we were looking for moderate bump runs, found a short sections on lower starr and lower liftline. gulch was groomed flat, so no joy there. the upper sections of nosedive were quite icy and firm. best snow conditions on mt mansfield were down by the chapel area where the lack of skier traffic and protection from the wind helped to hold the snow. diner was at the vermont brewery in burlington. excellent food and beer. the highlight of the nite was seeing college aged girls walking around outside in the 10 deg weather with no coats or hats. we thought it strange, or at least stupid.

 

mon, 2/13: ski day 2: 4" of fresh snow and highs in the 20's made for a much better ski day. my friend scot went off for a group lesson in the morning while rob, mrs guitar, and i logged in loads of turns before we met up again for lunch. we hit up gondolier first, since we missed it the first day. then we wandered over to the quad for a while. i hit up the demo shop, picked up a pair of the dynastar legend 94's (172) and then took a ride down lord. the 94's felt good under foot and held a good edge and was very responsive and edged relatively quickly. we then proceeded to liftline: what a fun trail. after lunch we hit up the gondola again, took cliff trail to nosedive to the quad, where i traded in for the volkl bridge's. took one run with them down north slope...didn't like them at all, except through the bumps where they were quick to turn. next up was the volkl kendo. they are very manuverable, but i found them to not hold an edge well. we the went out looking for trees. we hit up the chapel and birches glades: loads of fresh fluffy snow to be had by all. i wish we could have spent more time in them there trees. we then moved on to the nosedive glades. we skiied too close to the trail where the trees were very tight and the snow was very skied out. we were hoping to get one more run in, but we just missed the last chair up. on the way back to the b&b, we stopped by inner boot works so mrs. guitar could check out boots. while we were there, we ran into bushwackerinPA from epic. we chatted for a while (nice guy) and mrs. guitar got a new pair of boots. dinner was take out from pie casso followed by beers in the hot tub.

 

tues, 2/14: ski day 3: bonus ski day. temps in the mid 30's, bluebird day and soft snow...my kind of skiing weather! since mrs guitar bought skis the previous day, we decided to ski the morning on spruce peak to see how the boots worked out. overally she thinks the boots are OK. also, we kept to spruce peak b/c we were feeling pretty exhausted by the time tuesday rolled around. we skiied most of everything on spruce in 2 hrs. main street was closed for a slolam race. our favorite trails on spruce are upper and lower smuggler's and sterling. both trails are kind of windy and each has grea views of mt mansfield. the smugg's trail is bumped up while sterling is a cruiser. overally, we liked spruce peak: it's a good place to rest up those tired legs after hitting mt mansfield all day. at 11:20 we called it a day, had lunch, got changed, and hit the road.

 

overall we had a great time at stowe (as always). it was good to see that we were able to ski every trail we started. we def are making good progress in learning how to ski through the bumps. we were kind of suprised by the icy conditions, but that didn't stop us from having fun (the PA springlike conditions appeared to have spoiled us, lol).

 

pictures to follow.

[Justin]

glad you had fun. stowe has been really windblown lately, I've only been there once this month....sugarbush has stole my heart for now. glad to hear you managed to get some freshies and some sun.

[NMSKI]

Good stuff, glad you had a good time! Looking forward to the pics.

[guitar73]

here are some pictures from our trip. i am usually pretty bad about taking pics while skiing. this is my first time posting photos to PASR, so hopefully i got it right

 

view of mt mansfield from spruce peak

 

base of the new frontrunner quad. notice the long lift lines....

 

mr and mrs guitar73 at the top of the gondola.

 

mrs guitar73 decked out ninja style for the frigid weather.

 

hitting the bumps on lower starr

Edited February 16, 2012 by guitar73