Jay Silveira
New member
<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 1/19/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>The word had been out for a few days that snow might be coming for the weekend. This isn't normally such a big deal, but this season we've been starving for a weekend powder day. This was a clipper-type low pressure system, and although it was pretty weak as it crossed the great lakes, it was supposed to strengthen a bit as it reached New England, and possibly even bomb out off shore to give Eastern New England an extra punch. The snowfall was forecast to start in Burlington around midnight, with maybe an inch accumulation by morning. It was, however, supposed to drop 2-5 inches during the day, and we were of course hoping for even more in the mountains. We had a crew of four on this trip: J.Spin, E, Mango and Bennett (follow the links below for visuals of the crew). <BR> <BR>I awoke in the early A.M., and checked outside to see what was going on. As usual, Burlington had received its standard dusting of snow, and not much was really falling from the sky. I was initially concerned that the storm had fizzled, but a quick check with the Weather Channel revealed that other stations such as Montpelier and Morrisville were reporting snow, or at least light snow. NOAA Weather radio still reported a winter weather advisory, so hope was not lost. As we headed out, we encountered light snow along much of the route, but the roads were still in good shape since accumulations were just getting underway. <BR> <BR>Part 1: The Morning That Fizzled? <BR> <BR>8:07 A.M., we caught one of the first few chairs on the Super Bravo and headed up. The snow that was falling was essentially light (in falling intensity that is) , composed of very small grains. We got off the Super Bravo and hooked left to catch first tracks on Murphy's Glades. We found about 1-2 inches of new snow on top of the groomed base, and it made for a sweet ride (although certainly not a bottomless one). The four of us devoured the open expanse of Murphy's and headed over to Heaven's Gate to see if it was open. The lift op said not until 8:30 A.M., so we headed down to catch another run off the Super Bravo. This time, we took Downspout in an effort to get back to Heaven's Gate as quickly as possible. Conditions were similar to what we had experienced on Murphy's, but with a few more tracks. We got to Heaven's Gate just in time to catch the second chair, and headed up. Although temperatures on Saturday had been around 0 F, the passing storm system was pulling in air from the south and brought the temperatures up into the teens and near 20 degrees. This warmer air was of course accompanied by ample wind in some spots, especially the top of Heaven's Gate. We then went for a run down Jester, hoping to find a bit more snow that the 1-2 inches below. Unfortunately, the elevation had not done much to grab more snow, but we did get some great turns in the same manner we'd had earlier. The 1-2 new inches gave a nice soft feel as we arced through the many turns of Upper Jester. This time for the lower mountain, we took Domino Chute with some combination of Lower Jester and Lower Organgrinder to the bottom. The snow had unfortunately not picked up in intensity, but on the upside, this meant that we could shoot some video. <BR> <BR>We were getting ready to head up the Gate House Quad, and James had his first Buzz kill of the day. A misinformed lift attendant thought that Bronze Passes were blacked out for the holiday weekend, and James had to get a note from the pass office saying otherwise. Mango, with an identical pass, had not been stopped, so we handed James a Talkabout and headed for a run. James was real speedy though, and we were able to hold for him at the top and get everyone back together. North Lynx was still on wind hold, so we headed down Pushover Chute to Pushover. We found nice snow along this route, as well as along the skier's left of Lower Hot Shot. Up we went on the Gate House again and started on the same route. It wasn't long however, before we found ourselves in the woods checking out some interesting new terrain. The new snow that they had received earlier in the week (6 inches or so from what I recall), combined with the couple of inches from the morning, made these woods (low elevation, only about 2000') just passable enough. We were psyched to find enough coverage in there, and finished off by catching more tracks on the left of Easy Rider in the untouched snow (about 3-4 inches here to the left of where they traditionally groom). We also managed to squeak in a couple runs on Sleeper and Sleeper Chutes before the crowds arrived. The woods off of Sleeper were also skiable, wherever downed branches weren't too plentiful. <BR> <BR>We arrived back at the base to find that the whole world had arrived at the 'bush. We've found that lift lines are pretty rare at Sugarbush with all their high speed lifts etc., but the holiday weekend combined with a bit of new snow must have brought everyone out of the woodwork. Lift lines were present at both the Gate House Quad, and the Super Bravo Quad, so we decided that we needed to look around for another lift. Fortunately, the Spring Fling and Valley House Chairs were now running. The Valley House line was already getting long, but <BR>Spring Fling had only a few people, so we decided to go there. Unfortunately, it would be 20 minutes before they could start loading. Ugh! The now forming crowds, as well as the tapering off of the snow and the actual appearance of Blue skies had brought a bit of a lull in the groove we'd had going. It was time for a break! <BR> <BR>INTERMISSION <BR> <BR>Since we didn't want to deal with the lift lines, we decided to have some fun in the fresh snow below the Snow Creek Condos near the tubing park. We set up camp there for about 30 minutes and shot some good video. I was anxious to see if E, Mango, and James could ski the entire slope, holding hands, no poles etc. Although both Mango and James refused to be in the middle and hold each other's hand (haha), the conceded to go through with the shot as long as E was in the middle. I was hoping for a spectacular crash, but unfortunately they put on a flawless performance and all I got were shots of beautiful turns (see links below for an image). This of course raises the bar, and next time they will have to do something more difficult. After a quick lunch at the Valley House, I plotted schemes for the afternoon. Little did we know that things would pick up as hard as they did: HEAVY SNOW, TREE SKIING, DEEP POWDER, UNTRACKED TRAIL, AND JAMES GETS IN MORE TROUBLE WITH THE LAW. All coming up in part 2 below. <BR> <BR> <BR>Part 2: The Powdery Afternoon That Almost Wasn't <BR> <BR>I can't believe how close we came to leaving after lunch. I really can't. The crowds, lack of snow, and general malaise that had set in had us right on the edge of calling it a day. We decided to hit Spring Fling, and as we rode the lift, we could see what a mess the traffic was on the trail below. Due to the fact that Racer's Edge had a race going on and was closed, as well as the fact that 75% of the Spring Fling trail was closed off near the bottom for construction of the Aerial Assault Jump, everyone on the trails was compressed into a 40 foot wide section that had the traffic of a rush-hour freeway. I reassured E that although that was the only way out of the bottom of Spring Fling, and that we were taking Spring Fling, we would NOT be going that way 
. The snow on the skier's left of Spring Fling was looking nice, so we decided to ski the ridge and see what powder we could find along the edge. Soon we began to make bigger sweeps around trees into the woods, then it became short sections of woods, and before long, we found ourselves in the trees more than on the trail and getting deeper. The snow in there was great, 6-12 inches of powder, with adequate coverage to open up many lines. These woods are not traditionally all that open with lines anyway, but what little was there could be skied. We headed to the left and suddenly came out on an untracked trail with small bumps covered by a few inches of new snow. "What's This?!" We soon realized that we were on Lower Moonshine, and although the upper section was open and coverage was fine, it appeared as though the bottom section was closed because it dumped out amidst the snow cats that were working on the Aerial Assault Jump. "Whoops.", we thought as we looked up and saw the rope across the trail. Ignorance is bliss in this case however, and we enjoyed the nice lines all over Moonshine until it cut back to the right. This was, after all, the easiest way down off this closed trail. Mango advised that we dive back into the woods on the left to avoid coming out in the roped off area, and potentially crunched up by a snowcat. We all agreed and cut hard to the left towards the Mall. The Mall actually seemed to have excellent conditions, "a bit bony" as it had been a couple weeks before, but very nice snow and excellent coverage on the sidelines. I motioned my hand in a sweeping gesture to the left, <BR> <BR>"Now Mango", I said, "If I was to gesture my hand like this, what would you think it meant?" <BR> <BR>...and soon we were back in the trees. The snow on the Mall was nice, but it couldn't compare to the powder that we'd found in the trees. The woods opened up nicely and dropped us out onto Coffee Run. The excitement factor had returned in just one simple unplanned run, so we hopped on the Valley House Chair, eager to gobble up some more untracked powder in the woods. <BR> <BR>We got off the Valley House Chair and headed left onto Snowball. James seemed interested in checking out the woods off of Twist, so in we went. This snow was the best of the day, 6-12 inches plus, well protected by the dense trees. We'd been in here before, but it was great as always. We shot a little bit of video, but it sure was tough to pull ourselves away from the skiing long enough to get images on film. Before long, we found ourselves back on the Mall, once again ripping up the fresh snow on the left hand side. <BR> <BR>Something curious began to happen after this run. The snow from the morning had stopped, and even a bit of blue sky had appeared in the late morning, but now the snow returned, with a vengeance. These were not tiny granular flakes of the morning, these were huge, fluffy, crystalline entities that make super fluff. And these flakes hadn't brought along just a few of their friends, it was seriously DUMPING. This was in the 1-2 inch and hour category, where a ride on the lift means a quarter inch of accumulation on your clothes. It was enough to make a powder skier giggle. We decided to test out a stash that I had found last year, sort of "on the boundary". We continued to traverse until I decided we needed to start downward. James noticed that the traverse continued, even though we were dropping down. <BR> <BR>"Hey", hey asked, "Any idea where that goes?" <BR>"Well", I said, "I'm not exactly sure, but have you ever heard of Granville" <BR> <BR>We still have to explore that route sometime in the future, it may provide a mellower option to what we took. Down we headed, right into the fall line finding slightly less snow that in the Twistmall woods, but deep enough for good turns. It was still snowing like a bat out of hell anyway, so we knew things would only get better. Some members of our party (not mentioning any namEs, lol) were beginning to get a little worn out from skiing all the trees, so we decided to head over to check out North Lynx (no longer on wind hold) before we left. We took Valley house first, and on the way via Reverse Traverse, we got our first look at Egan's Woods from the top (roped off but looking in nice shape). It's a Hardwood glade of smallish birches and such, moderately steep, about 5-10 foot tree spacing. On our way down, I hopped into a random woods section somewhere near lower Organgrinder "just to check it out". James got his second buzz kill of the day when a patroller stopped him about 50 feet into the woods and forced him to hike out. He said that the woods weren't really open yet. (I'd contest that they're never really open, you just ski them and that's kind of it.) It seemed he was most concerned that the section of woods dumped off into a closed trail, which is certainly a good point. I was not seen, but fortunately I came out of the woods just above the roped off section. I never met the patroller, but I have to think that the closed trail was his main concern, as other patrollers that had seen us in the woods that day didn't seem to mind. <BR> <BR>It was still snowing, and HARD. This pretty much gave me a sort of unlimited energy supply that could have lasted me for hours. Snow starvation will do that I guess. Still, we planned to hit North Lynx a bit and call it a day. We skied Birch Run, and found nice snow along the skier's right. Mango and E headed for the lodge, and James and I finished off with a fun-filled powder run down Sunshine. It had great bumps, but the best stuff was the powder that was collecting on the skier's left; 4-6 inches and counting. We finally headed down, hitting the steep face of Waterfall to finish off our day. It was still dumping, but we had to go The report I heard on Monday was that they picked up about 4-6 inches new. <BR> <BR> <BR>The "Random Equipment Modification Award" goes to - Mango for ripping a good sized hole in his hood and never even knowing about it until the end of the day. I wouldn't want to be the tree that did that, bring on the Gore patch kit. <BR> <BR>The "Hey, what the?!" award goes to - J.Spin for losing his hood to a grabby tree in the woods. Fortunately, my old hood is fashionably and functionally equipped with buttons for "rip away" style performance. Otherwise - I'd probably have a hole like Mango. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. <BR> <BR>The "I'm a Really Nice Guy in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time Award" - James for getting in trouble with both the ski patrol AND the ticket <BR>checkers. <BR> <BR>Best Crash of the day - Mango head over heels in the woods near the Mall, of course it was not caught on film <BR> <BR> <BR>Images associated with this report (5 IMAGES) can be viewed at: <BR>http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/16JAN00.html
. The snow on the skier's left of Spring Fling was looking nice, so we decided to ski the ridge and see what powder we could find along the edge. Soon we began to make bigger sweeps around trees into the woods, then it became short sections of woods, and before long, we found ourselves in the trees more than on the trail and getting deeper. The snow in there was great, 6-12 inches of powder, with adequate coverage to open up many lines. These woods are not traditionally all that open with lines anyway, but what little was there could be skied. We headed to the left and suddenly came out on an untracked trail with small bumps covered by a few inches of new snow. "What's This?!" We soon realized that we were on Lower Moonshine, and although the upper section was open and coverage was fine, it appeared as though the bottom section was closed because it dumped out amidst the snow cats that were working on the Aerial Assault Jump. "Whoops.", we thought as we looked up and saw the rope across the trail. Ignorance is bliss in this case however, and we enjoyed the nice lines all over Moonshine until it cut back to the right. This was, after all, the easiest way down off this closed trail. Mango advised that we dive back into the woods on the left to avoid coming out in the roped off area, and potentially crunched up by a snowcat. We all agreed and cut hard to the left towards the Mall. The Mall actually seemed to have excellent conditions, "a bit bony" as it had been a couple weeks before, but very nice snow and excellent coverage on the sidelines. I motioned my hand in a sweeping gesture to the left, <BR> <BR>"Now Mango", I said, "If I was to gesture my hand like this, what would you think it meant?" <BR> <BR>...and soon we were back in the trees. The snow on the Mall was nice, but it couldn't compare to the powder that we'd found in the trees. The woods opened up nicely and dropped us out onto Coffee Run. The excitement factor had returned in just one simple unplanned run, so we hopped on the Valley House Chair, eager to gobble up some more untracked powder in the woods. <BR> <BR>We got off the Valley House Chair and headed left onto Snowball. James seemed interested in checking out the woods off of Twist, so in we went. This snow was the best of the day, 6-12 inches plus, well protected by the dense trees. We'd been in here before, but it was great as always. We shot a little bit of video, but it sure was tough to pull ourselves away from the skiing long enough to get images on film. Before long, we found ourselves back on the Mall, once again ripping up the fresh snow on the left hand side. <BR> <BR>Something curious began to happen after this run. The snow from the morning had stopped, and even a bit of blue sky had appeared in the late morning, but now the snow returned, with a vengeance. These were not tiny granular flakes of the morning, these were huge, fluffy, crystalline entities that make super fluff. And these flakes hadn't brought along just a few of their friends, it was seriously DUMPING. This was in the 1-2 inch and hour category, where a ride on the lift means a quarter inch of accumulation on your clothes. It was enough to make a powder skier giggle. We decided to test out a stash that I had found last year, sort of "on the boundary". We continued to traverse until I decided we needed to start downward. James noticed that the traverse continued, even though we were dropping down. <BR> <BR>"Hey", hey asked, "Any idea where that goes?" <BR>"Well", I said, "I'm not exactly sure, but have you ever heard of Granville" <BR> <BR>We still have to explore that route sometime in the future, it may provide a mellower option to what we took. Down we headed, right into the fall line finding slightly less snow that in the Twistmall woods, but deep enough for good turns. It was still snowing like a bat out of hell anyway, so we knew things would only get better. Some members of our party (not mentioning any namEs, lol) were beginning to get a little worn out from skiing all the trees, so we decided to head over to check out North Lynx (no longer on wind hold) before we left. We took Valley house first, and on the way via Reverse Traverse, we got our first look at Egan's Woods from the top (roped off but looking in nice shape). It's a Hardwood glade of smallish birches and such, moderately steep, about 5-10 foot tree spacing. On our way down, I hopped into a random woods section somewhere near lower Organgrinder "just to check it out". James got his second buzz kill of the day when a patroller stopped him about 50 feet into the woods and forced him to hike out. He said that the woods weren't really open yet. (I'd contest that they're never really open, you just ski them and that's kind of it.) It seemed he was most concerned that the section of woods dumped off into a closed trail, which is certainly a good point. I was not seen, but fortunately I came out of the woods just above the roped off section. I never met the patroller, but I have to think that the closed trail was his main concern, as other patrollers that had seen us in the woods that day didn't seem to mind. <BR> <BR>It was still snowing, and HARD. This pretty much gave me a sort of unlimited energy supply that could have lasted me for hours. Snow starvation will do that I guess. Still, we planned to hit North Lynx a bit and call it a day. We skied Birch Run, and found nice snow along the skier's right. Mango and E headed for the lodge, and James and I finished off with a fun-filled powder run down Sunshine. It had great bumps, but the best stuff was the powder that was collecting on the skier's left; 4-6 inches and counting. We finally headed down, hitting the steep face of Waterfall to finish off our day. It was still dumping, but we had to go The report I heard on Monday was that they picked up about 4-6 inches new. <BR> <BR> <BR>The "Random Equipment Modification Award" goes to - Mango for ripping a good sized hole in his hood and never even knowing about it until the end of the day. I wouldn't want to be the tree that did that, bring on the Gore patch kit. <BR> <BR>The "Hey, what the?!" award goes to - J.Spin for losing his hood to a grabby tree in the woods. Fortunately, my old hood is fashionably and functionally equipped with buttons for "rip away" style performance. Otherwise - I'd probably have a hole like Mango. It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last. <BR> <BR>The "I'm a Really Nice Guy in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time Award" - James for getting in trouble with both the ski patrol AND the ticket <BR>checkers. <BR> <BR>Best Crash of the day - Mango head over heels in the woods near the Mall, of course it was not caught on film <BR> <BR> <BR>Images associated with this report (5 IMAGES) can be viewed at: <BR>http://www.uvm.edu/~jsilveir/16JAN00.html