Stowe Trip Report

[Schif]

Friday March 23, 2007: Arrived at the Bryce Jordan Center right before 2:00 but did not get on the road until 3. Bus ride was pretty comfortable and I had a seat to myself. Got a little sidetracked and had to get off in Wilkes-Barre and get on the turnpike to avoid construction. We stopped only once in upstate New York for half an hour. Arrived at the Commodore's Inn in Stowe around midnight, and hour ahead of schedule. Got our lift tickets and went to bed.

 

Saturday March 24, 2007: First day on the snow. Got up at 6:30, had a great breakfast buffet at the hotel and left at 8 for the mountain. It was an absolutely perfect bluebird day, with temperatures hovering around 40. I went straight for the gondola and got up rather quickly. First run was down Gondolier. The snow was firm, yet edgeable, halfway down, it was softened up much more, but was no where near slush yet. Second run from the gondola was Cliff trail to Lower Nosedive to the Forerunner Quad. By this time it was obvious to me that Vermont is a little bigger than PA and I wasn't about to drop into any of the diamonds or doubles. After a few warm ups on Lord it was time for the first diamond of the day. For this we went for Hayride. By this point the snow was softening up and it seemed like a good idea to try to drop into the trees. Well it became readily apparent that this was not the case when I lost an edge on some hard stuff and found myself wrapped around a tree. After this we decided to head over to "Sunny" Spruce, where it would most likely be softer than on Mount Mansfield, but would be slushy later. The runs were fun here, but some most notably main street had enormous patches of grass coming out for almost the entire width of the trail. Some were small enough that it was fun to jump, but most you had to go completely around. The snow was good for the sections that had it, but there were definitely a lot of bare patches over here. Upper Smuggler's which was closed actually had much better coverage in most areas than the open trails.

 

We then went back to Mount Mansfield and right up the gondola for a run down Chin Clip. The bumps here were very tightly grouped and of decent size, nothing unmanageable, but I was definitely feeling some leg burn at the bottom of this one. Another trip up the gondola and a Cliff Trail run back to the quad for laps of the diamonds and doubles now. Nose Dive, Hayride, Lookout and Liftline were absolutely incredible. The snow was soft, but not sugary, and held a nice edge. Bumps formed in a lot of areas, and exposed rocks and grass made each run about as gnarly as possible. National was definitely one of the most insane trails I've done to date. I got a nice picture of me hanging my nose off of the edge of this one. I think its safe to say that the top part of this trail makes White Lightning look like a bunny slope. For the top 100 or so feet there was a lot of exposed grass and rocks. The only way down was a very narrow chute of snow on the left side that you really just had to bomb down. There aren't a whole lot of trails that make me stop at the bottom and say wow, but National is definitely one of those. After finishing the front four (minus goat because it was closed), I decided to change pace a little bit and head down Toll Road. This is another trail I won't soon forget. It was just incredible to cruise for that insane amount of time and never had to stop. I think it took right around half an hour to go from top to bottom. The slow snow had something to do with this, and after taking the excruciatingly slow double back up it was decided to avoid the Toll House area for the rest of the day. Afterwards we lapped the diamonds from the quad and took 2 park runs.

 

The bus left from the mountain at around 430 and brought us back to the Commodore. We only had an hour and a half to get changed though, because UVM was having a rail jam and party in Burlington and invited us. In Burlington a few of our guys did the rail jam, but most didn't. The snow they had was too slow and the 2 boxes they had (really wide one and really wide C) weren't waxed very well at all because it took a lot for someone to get to the end very smoothly. We walked around Burlington for a while and after finding that everywhere for a quick bite to eat was either out of food or didn't want to do take outs we ended up eating (and drinking) at the Church Street Tavern. They had some pretty good food there, but it took entirely too long to get a table and for the food to come out. We left there and went to a convenient store to pick up some beer. I went with 2 cases of Magic Hat #9. They were only $12 for 12 bottles. The ride back to Stowe was fun with the first ever group shotgun on a bus, and the cramming of multiple people into overhead compartments. Back at the hotel we hung out in a few rooms, the down in the lobby and bar for a while until passing out around 1.

 

Sunday March 25, 2007. After a repeat of breakfast we headed out to the mountain a little later than the day before. Weather was cloudy with some fog, mostly at the top, but within an hour this cleared up and we were back to bluebird.. It had rained a little the night before, but it had turned to snow and the mountain had a fresh inch on it. Knowing what I was doing today made it much more productive. Only 3 runs were made over on Spruce Peak, mainly to ride through the tunnel. The rest of the day was spent hopping around from the quad and other lifts and a few gondola rides trying to get the stuff we missed the day before. The snow was much softer today and bumps were forming everywhere. Spent some time in the woods and doing diamonds from the quad. Went back to the bus around 2:30, changed and we headed out. It took a little longer to get out of town than expected, because we had to stop at the hospital and drop off gear to one of the guys on the trip who broke his leg on spruce peak by hitting a lift tower. After another 9 hours in the bus and only one stop on the way back, we arrived in State College at 1:30 am. This was no where near the end of my night however as I still had webassign homework to do and spent the next 2 hours in a computer lab before beginning the trek back to my apartment. Due to the ridiculous amount of gear I was toting and the fact that I had been up since 6:30 and had spent the better part of my day snowboarding, I didn't get back to my place until 4:40 a.m. Needless to say I went directly to bed and slept through all my classes today.

 

 

 

 

The Short Version:

 

Trails: Absolutely incredible, some of the most fun ones I've ever done. Very long, some extremely difficult and they all had a great feel to them. Closed: Hackett's Highway and Goat

Conditions: Very good for the end of March. There were a lot of areas with a lot of exposed grass, but it wasn't too bad, and most of it was on Spruce Peak. The snow was nice, definitely varied due to sun exposure, but never got sloppy, just very soft in areas.

Lifts: Fantastic, The quad and the gondola run about as fast as I've ever seen a lift run, and even the fixed grips move at a good clip. The only line was ever at the quad, but they do a good job of getting 4 to a chair.

Amenities: Very nice as well. I was only in the Octagon briefly, the deck offers some fantastic views, and the Mansfield base lodge once, but they are very nice places and have a very nice rustic feel to them. The People at Stowe were some of the most friendly I've ever met as well.

Edited March 27, 2007 by Schifdawg