guitar73 Posted March 7, 2014 Report Posted March 7, 2014 tinymoose and I started march off with a mini ski safari of northern vt. our trip was centered around the skidiva.com's eastern gathering at stowe mountain resort. we decided to check out other mtns on this trip, so we tacked on smuggler's notch (smuggs) and sugarbush. our base of operations was the innsbruck inn in stowe. this is an OK place....not fancy by any means, but it has clean rooms and a hot tub, is close to stowe mtn resort, and the rate includes a full b-fast and après snacks ( 2 queen bed for about $100/nite). we arrived in stowe on Saturday and met our friends bryan, melissa, and rob. dinner was had at the vermont ale house. bangin' fried chicken and two heady toppers made for an excellent dinner. ski day #1 - smuggs. the resort consists of 3 peaks (morse, madonna, and sterling). the main village is located on morse peak: this is where most of the beginner terrain is located. all the family friendly stuff is located in the village. madonna and sterling is where the real skiing is to be had at smuggs. we bypassed the village area and went up to the madonna base lodge to get our tix and boot up. 3 to 6 inches of freshies and highs in the mid teens was the order of the day. we started off by taking the madonna 1 lift up to the top of the resort. let me tell you that madonna peak is no joke: steep tight glades, 30 ft cliffs, 50 plus degree pitched trails....you had better bring your A-game if you want to tackle everything that madonna peak has to offer up. unfortunately for us, all the really difficult terrain was close due to lack of coverage. from the top, we headed over towards the sterling area.....turns were soft and fluffy over a scratchy base. sterling peak has a ton of great tails on it. we did several laps....more fresh turns, powdery bumps and sweet glades: yummy. after lunch, we hit up the trees off the madonna 2 lift. bermuda glades was a nice long area...not very technical, but a lot of fun. we went back up to the top and dropped into doc dempsy's glades: steep and bumpy with widely spaced trees....def the run of the day. overall, we really like smuggs...so many gladed areas to check out. we're def planning to go back. ski day #2 - stowe. fast and firm, cold and windy. all the fresh snow that we got on day #1 was scraped off by the 12 bus loads of people that crowded smr. not much to say about this day's skiing....the only trail that was really fun this day was whirl away on spruce peak. no one was skiing any of the front four, and for good reason.....ice skating rink at the top. this year we used the midway lodge. parking is really close to the lodge and it is convenient to the gondola. ski day #3 - stowe. still fast and firm, but no wind. rob and I met up with jfskidan at the base of the gondola around 10 am. tinymoose and the others went over to lower national to get some practice in the bumps and then headed over to the chapel area to check out the trees. everyone met up for another lap down the chapel glades. after lunch, rob went off with a few local instructors and hit up the kitchen wall. jfskidan and I lapped the front runner quad, hit up the nosedive glades (skier's right of trail), lower national glades, and liftline glades (skier's left, below midway). by far this was the best time we had at stowe this week. nice soft snow, very good coverage, little to no ice. ski day #4 - sugarbush. surprise snow showers and not as cold temps made for every good skiing conditions, even though light was an issue. we all started off the super bravo quad.....about 2 inches on scratchy boiler plate. we moved over to the heavens gate lift to get to the top of Lincoln peak. we cruised down jester and stayed to skier's right, where we split up. rob, jfskidan, and I dropped inot the eden glades, which was just fantastic. it was a little thin in places, but nothing to get worked up about. we jumped over to the gate house quad and did a couple of laps on sleeper and deeper sleeper. after a quick waffle break, we headed up to the top of north lynx and headed over to castle rock.....that's where the goods were. loads of untracked and the deepest stuff we found that day. run of the day was castlerock/troll road/liftline. we were very impressed by sugarbush and def plan to get back there at some point. good times had by all....and there was much rejoicing....pics to follow. 1 Quote
guitar73 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Report Posted March 7, 2014 heady topper goodness castlerock liftline 1 Quote
AtomicSkier Posted March 7, 2014 Report Posted March 7, 2014 Hell with the trip...how was the Heady Topper? 2 Quote
toast21602 Posted March 7, 2014 Report Posted March 7, 2014 Hell with the trip...how was the Heady Topper? Hell with what he thought of the Topper... Did he bring any for us?!? Quote
guitar73 Posted March 7, 2014 Author Report Posted March 7, 2014 it was really good. i had some before going up (a co-working brought some in). it's not available outside of northern vt, as far as i know. i was not able to get to a distributor up there to get a case. the alchemist closed their brewery to the general public and they deliver their own stuff to local resturants and liquor stores. the delivery is on a rotating schedule during the week....just didn't line up for us this time, sorry guys . supposedly they are opening up a new retail space, but they are having a hard time finding suitable space. no, we didn't have enough vacay days to do any non-ski touristy stuff... Quote
moe ghoul Posted March 7, 2014 Report Posted March 7, 2014 Nice TR, sounds like y'all had a good sampling of everything up there. Heading back up sometime midweek in hopes of a potential powpacolypse by Thursday. Yeah, yeah, I know.....too early...... Quote
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