Stowe Storm Day

P

powderfreak

New member
On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:16:11 -0500, Scott Braaten <sbraaten> wrote:

>All snow. Snowing 1"/hr. Gotta go to work. Awesome stuff that hopefully
>Jumpin' Jimmy will fill in some more details when he gets back.
>

Its getting real good up there. I was dismayed to find only an inch or two this morning in Burlington but the snow was picking back up again; there was still hope. On I-89 it was snow all the way to the Richmond exit, where it promptly started raining at 23 degrees. The rest of the way to exit 10 was a mix of freezing rain and sleet...but then in Waterbury Center it was back to snow for good. It just flat out dumped around an inch an hour for the short while Dave and I were there; I had to work at 3 which was a bummer. I figure I'll just go up again tomorrow.

The parking lot early in the afternoon...
http://tinyurl.com/2aexv2

But I'm getting ahead of myself...As we were going down for our first run, someone's calling us. Its Jumpin Jimmy Clapp. He's with co-worker and lurker John. Cool. We then proceeded to do several Bench-variation runs. Hazelton was also done but the snowpack is so high in here, that I had to ski the entire thing doubled over...which led to a high speed double eject into a stand of baby white pines. No one witnessed it but it would've been hilarious to watch.

Hazelton was awesome. Everything is buried which leads to some pretty wide open spaces...and great powder skiing today.

http://tinyurl.com/2829pd
http://tinyurl.com/2brwjx

After that, we headed back over to the Gondi for some more Ridge. Its reliable powder and by now it was getting deeper and much sweeter.

Jim's thankful for the snow day that led to many a powder turn.
http://tinyurl.com/29lyce

These glades never get old.
http://tinyurl.com/yqb29a

Dave digs in for some east coast powder.
http://tinyurl.com/2fz5kv

It was pretty fun to watch Dave, ...and Jimmy...just absolutely rip that little bowl off the ridge. Then, John found this awesome little shot down the last pitch down to 108. He nailed the line and I wish I had caught that on camera. It looked pretty sweet from above. There was plenty of space back here and Jim hit the line right next to John's...this is Grade-A Vermont skiing.

http://tinyurl.com/27ffaa

Alas...I had to go to work so Dave and I took off for a particularly interesting ride home on I-89. It was dumping pretty much the whole way home; tomorrow should be pretty sweet because no one was there again today. The place was empty. I had fresh tracks in obvious lines at 3pm on Tuesday, and now there was still tons of fresh (plus dumping snow) early this afternoon. Where are the people?

-Scott
 
We were there too. It was unreal, pretty much empty. Third chair in the morning, took firsts down liftline, then lookout, then three different gully variations between the front four. Moved on to bypass woods that still hadn't been tracked. Took a gully run on the gondi side, then up the ridge. Skied the northface down to the brook, first ones in there. It was pretty unreal. A couple vids to follow.
 
sounds like a great day at stowe salida! i was foaming at the mouth from your morning circuit across mansfield description.
i chose maine this time cuz it's not often when they have enough snow cover to to make everything a go. they got it now, so thought i should feast a bit.
will be over to ski the stowe goods soon enough and will keep you posted as to when to epect the nomads.
rog
 
We diverted from our plans for K-Mart and arrived at Stowe on Tuesday at 10:30 pm, grabbed a $69 room with breakfast at the Stowe Inn and hit it at 8:30 until 2:30 non-stop.

Definitely avoided the rain, but also some of the overnight snow.

Added 660 miles to the odometer in 31 hours.
 
Powderfreak's reports have amazing consistency. He must be making some of you east coasters think about rearranging your work schedules/vacation days.
 
Tony Crocker":2awg4hr4 said:
Powderfreak's reports have amazing consistency. He must be making some of you east coasters think about rearranging your work schedules/vacation days.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking this for a while. He's only a bit behind the SLC crew in the number of powder days he logs... or so it seems.
 
The only solution, as has been repeated here hundreds of times, is to move within daytrip distance to the goods. On a daily basis, I curse my film professor friend at Middlebury... who doesn't ski.
 
Tony Crocker":1s9fm88v said:
Powderfreak's reports have amazing consistency. He must be making some of you east coasters think about rearranging your work schedules/vacation days.
Click to expand...

It's been good pretty much EVERYDAY, so it's there to be taken.

PS. You know it's been a good year when J.Spin hasn't posted a TR in a while. :P I expect to see him posting belated TRs for this season all the way to next Christmas. :lol: :wink:
 
jamesdeluxe":214hslw6 said:
Tony Crocker":214hslw6 said:
Powderfreak's reports have amazing consistency. He must be making some of you east coasters think about rearranging your work schedules/vacation days.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking this for a while. He's only a bit behind the SLC crew in the number of powder days he logs... or so it seems.
Click to expand...
Is powderfreak behind the SLC crowd in powder day count? I would be surprised if powderfreak hasn't logged more powder days than most of the SLC contingent at FTO.
 
riverc0il":3cokppam said:
I would be surprised if powderfreak hasn't logged more powder days than most of the SLC contingent at FTO.
Click to expand...

That's why I added "or so it seems." The guy's putting up huge numbers... and I laughed at Jason's comment about all the photos being from the same day, because I've wondered that as well.
:wink:

This is news to me, but Roger Laroche from the Carnet du Ski website reports that Vermont is on track to recording its "snowiest winter in the last 130 years." My first response was "huh?"... but maybe Powderfreak, RivercOil, and the others who ski northern VT can give more info.

VERS UN RECORD D'ENNEIGEMENT AU VERMONT
A l’aube d’une nouvelle chute de neige importante cette semaine et à quelques jours du début de la relâche américaine, l’état du Vermont se dirige vers son hiver le plus enneigé des 130 dernières années.
 
i'll be skiing a non powder day tomorrow w/ folks from work, we ski friday mornings at gunstock or sunapee from 9-12. my last 15 days in a row have been legit pow days, ok, 9 of em were in utah. out of 52 days skiing this year since nov 18th, at stowe-a pow day, over 30 of em have been pow days in the east. not too bad for a place that's icy all of the time. looking forward to turn shape refinement obsessiveness in the morning.
rog
 
jamesdeluxe":1ngqtykf said:
This is news to me, but Roger Laroche from the Carnet du Ski website reports that Vermont is on track to recording its "snowiest winter in the last 130 years." My first response was "huh?"... but maybe Powderfreak, RivercOil, and the others who ski northern VT can give more info.
Click to expand...
My response is "Huh?" as well. Salida already posted the graph and the snowy season still has three months to go, so who knows what will happen. Base depths are definitely way deeper than average, especially outside of NoVT. Still can not believe how big the snow banks are here in central NH. When I was a MA resident doing the Cannon commute, I can remember so many of those drives with no snow on the ground until hitting the notch during January and February. Cannon has already passed their seasonal average. Not bad. But not record setting either. Additionally, this year has yet to surpass last year in quality of "big" powder days (from my perspective, powderfreak and others may speak to different experiences). The storms have been more consistent and frequent but fewer major dumps and far less under the radar. Lots on the weekends, too. This season has a ways to go before it exceeds last season, in my mind. November and December were super fantastic but we are still by and large spinning wheels and building base depths instead of letting things really rip.
 
riverc0il":3ntw90u8 said:
Additionally, this year has yet to surpass last year in quality of "big" powder days (from my perspective, powderfreak and others may speak to different experiences). The storms have been more consistent and frequent but fewer major dumps and far less under the radar. Lots on the weekends, too. This season has a ways to go before it exceeds last season, in my mind. November and December were super fantastic but we are still by and large spinning wheels and building base depths instead of letting things really rip.
Click to expand...

Sure we haven't had 40 inch storms on holidays (v-day, st pats, easter) like we did last year, but deep snow skiing hasn't been that hard to find. If you can find shots that haven't been skier tracked for the last few storms its easy to be skiing thigh or waist deep snow(even deeper). I would say this season is heads and tails above last... Maybe its because I've been frequenting stowe more, but still bases are way above last season, and if you can find the real untracked stuff its just as deep as if after a giant storm.

edit: the occasional rail layer has made this difficult some times, but it happend through the end of december, and then also through late january, as its starting to have this affect again.
 
I really need to remember to use the FTO vid uploader one of these times...

Gpetrics, owning it, who says you can't use big skis on the east coast.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DxqFCgKviC4&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DxqFCgKviC4&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
 
Sure we haven't had 40 inch storms on holidays (v-day, st pats, easter) like we did last year, but deep snow skiing hasn't been that hard to find. If you can find shots that haven't been skier tracked for the last few storms its easy to be skiing thigh or waist deep snow(even deeper). I would say this season is heads and tails above last... Maybe its because I've been frequenting stowe more, but still bases are way above last season, and if you can find the real untracked stuff its just as deep as if after a giant storm.

not to diss ya steve as i value your opinion but, i completely agree with the above statement. november and december 07' aside, we know how epic that period was, the base depths and skiability of nearly all areas of nh, me and vt, especially me and nh this season are far exceeding where we were last year at this time. the v-day storm wed-fri last year definately rocked and gave most areas what they needed but, we still gotta long way to go before we can compare last year to this cuz last season started on v-day for most areas.
rog
 
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