<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/18/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Today was supposed to be the opening day for the Mount Greylock Ski Club's own little ski area, but we have no natural snow in the Berkshires. My fourteen year old son and I wanted to ski anyway, so we headed up to Stratton this morning. There is no snow in Manchester, VT, either, but we found an inch or two of natural snow as we drove uphill on Routes 11 and 30 heading east. <BR> <BR>In short, Stratton had too many people skiing on too few trails. The gondola, the American Express six, and the North American quad lifts were operating. On the upper half of the mountain there were four ways down: North American, Upper Spruce, Liftline, and Get My Drift/Upper Slalom Glade. The latter three emptied onto a narrow catwalk, aptly named Interstate, which goes back to the mid-mountain. The ski patrol watched nervously as hundreds of skiers dodged each other as they hurried along the Interstate. By 10:30 a.m. the snow on all of these trails was scraped down to smooth hardpack. It was a bit frightening to ski with so much traffic and such impenetrable snow. My son and I called it quits at noon. <BR> <BR>Tomorrow things should improve. Stratton plans to operate the new Ursa Express six pack lift for the first time and plans to almost double the trail count. It is too bad that the new lift and the additional trails were not available for today's big crowd. Perhaps Thursday night was too warm to make much progress with snowmaking. <BR> <BR>The Ursa Express replaces the good old Grizzly double chair. On empty midweek days I used to enjoy riding the Grizzly. It seemed so remote from the hussle of the base area and it served several fun trails. Even the lift attendants at the Grizzly seemed more relaxed and happier than their counterparts elsewhere. <BR> <BR>Nevertheless the Grizzly was a real bottleneck on busy weekends. I can understand why Intrawest decided to replace it with a six pack. The new lift has its base station where the Grizzly base used to be. It's top station is slightly west of where the Grizzly used to end. <BR> <BR>The new lift crosses Upper Tamarack and ends between Upper Tamarack and North American. As mentioned previously on skivt-l, Intrawest plans to remove the North American quad chair. It does not appear on the 1999-2000 trail map, although it was in operation today. <BR> <BR>Southern Vermont & the Berkshires desperately need a big snow storm. The resorts are making heroic efforts to create enough snow to open more terrain for the holidays, but Mother Nature needs to help out.
Stratton, VT 12/18/99
- Thread starter Jeff
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