Okemo, Stowe, Sugarbush

[JFskiDan]

Made the drive up to Vermont Sunday after skiing Frost with some friends on Saturday. Pretty easy 5 hr drive to Okemo from the poconos. My original plan was to head further north and hit Jay, Smuggs, Burke, and Cannon, next week but i was having issues finding someone to look after my dog. I revised the plan to stay at my parents place at Okemo, where the lodging is free, dog is being looked after, and dinner is always ready by 6:30 pm.

 

I skied Okemo Monday, its kind of hard not to, Sachem Trail is about 100' away. i havent been to Okemo in a long time. Conditions where pretty much the standard east coast stuff we have been dealing with all season. Really nice grooming, but after things get skied off the hardpack and ice come back through. There was a light dusting overnite which did a great job of making things look better than they really were. i left the groomed trails pretty early in favor of Double Diamond, and Outrage. These are two trails at Okemo that have some loosely spaced out trees on the trail. These would have been great if conditions were better. They are both natural snow, non groomed runs. light dusting of snow on top of hardpack/ice, with rocks and boulders mixed in. Still you can pick your way down, but it would be really nice if conditions were better. i looked into Loose Spruce, which is a glade, but i wasnt crazy about the snow, in it, and i was alone, so i bailed out pretty quick. Safety first. In the afternoon i check out Jackson Gore. Kind of more of the same over there, just nothing to get too excited about, but on my way back to Sachem i passed by a Glade i would like to check out today. Bottom line is nothing nobody already knew, Okemo is for families, there is tons of slopeside lodging, and they really do a nice job with their Grooming. They also over rate all their trails, and they actually state on their trail map "this system is a relative system and valid at Okemo only"

 

Tuesday i made the 2 hour drive up to Stowe, to catch up with Guitar and Tiny Moose. They were skiing with a crowd from the ski divas, and another friend of theirs. This was day 2 at Stowe for them. We quickly met up and skiied with the group mixing in some trail with some of the glades over by the chapel which were really fun. Over all conditions were better than Okemo, but their natural snow trails were suffering from the same coverage issues, and there was some ice to be found in spots. I think the glades were a bit more filled in and a the trails overall were in better shape, they didnt seem to get scraped off quite as bad by the afternoon. After lunch Guitar and i split off and headed for some glades off the Four runner Quad. Made a few runs through some really nice glades and decided our last run or two would be some nice cruisers since our legs had a workout and we were sweating up a storm. Stowe is a fun place, and i could have definitely done another day there, so, two thumbs up.

 

Wednesday was Sugarbush. Woke up to about an inch of new snow, and it continued through the day with minor accumulations, but what did fall made the day really nice. We met up with some of the same group from the previous day. for the first part of the day we stuck to runs off of Lincoln Peak, then made our way over to Lynx Peak where we found Deeper Sleeper which was a really nice tree run. Sugarbush had very similar conditions as the other mountains. Natural snow trails and glades were lacking some. Definitely some things to avoid in Deeper Sleeper. After noon a few of us broke away to head over to Castlerock Peak, which from what i understand has no snowmaking what so ever, so we were a little concerned about coverage, but we took the trip up. Castlerock is where we really found the best runs of the day. Liftline was a little sketchy at the very top, but there were some convenient ways to drop into this a little further down. there was alot more powder on Castlerock, then the rest of the mountain for whatever reason. We had a blast on liftline playing in some bumps with really soft powder, which was barely touched for whatever reason. it was hard to leave there, but this was also the travel day home for Guitar, Tiny Moose and most of the other group. We left Castlerock just after 2 pm. i made one more run off Lincoln Peak which proved 2 things, my legs were shot, and Castleback was the place to be in the afternoon. Sugarbush is another place i really liked. lots of varied terrain, and we didnt even touch Mt Ellen. I would love to spend some more time in Castleback, as i saw some lines through the trees that looked pretty interesting.

 

Overall, it was a great trip, it would have been nice to really get alot more snow, but this is the East Coast. I am sure Guitar and Tiny Moose will add some as they skied Smuggs on Sunday.

 

Double Diamond, Outrage, and Black Hole at Okemo.

 

 

 

 

Pics from Stowe and Sugarbush to follow.

 

[guitar73]

ditto what jkskidan wrote. most def an awesome time in NoVT. we ended up staying at the innsbruck inn in stowe....it's an OK place. clean rooms, really good b-fast and apres snacks, and a decent hot tub. very convenient location to stowe (5 min drive max)....all for about $100/nite. sunday at smuggs and weds at sugarbush were def the best days, hands down. i'll post a tr in a bit.

[toast21602]

Looks great!

[Ride Delaware ?]

Definitely bummed I missed you guys. I took yesterday off, but I would have come out if I knew where to meet you.

 

Glad you got after it. It's a little thin up here, but most of it is avoidable if you've got your head on a swivel.

[JFskiDan]

A little lacking in Stowe pics, but i think we bumped into the Stowe smoke shack. looks well built.

 

 

i think this was the glade we were in that we entered off of Nosedive, and kind of cut across Goat and National.

 

 

 

Sugarbush - Deeper Sleeper (i think) nice long mellow glade. had nice snow in it

 

 

 

Castlerock - Castlerock Run

 

 

Liftline

 

 

 

 

 

[moe ghoul]

Looks like you guys got fairly good conditions while there, good to see you pulled the trigger and got up there, JFD.