Stowe 20130-03-22

admafw

New member
My favorite mountain in the east, well over a foot of snow in the past 48 hrs (2"-3" inches overnight) and half price lift tickets thanks to Ski & Ride with The Point day. Certainly the most pleasant, laid-back vibe I'd ever felt at Stowe. Conditions so good that everyone on each chair / gondola I rode up with had a irrepressible, stupid grin and an overall positive outlook on life. Lots of locals sneaking in a few morning runs. Just to put the cherry on top, the clouds started breaking up mid-morning and it turned into a bluebird day.

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What can I say about the snow - the conditions were fantastic. Did Chin Clip around 10:00 am and was able to ski fresh lines amongst the bumps. Skiing by myself I mostly stayed out of the glades but I managed to score some extra fresh lines by cutting through the switch backs on toll road. (I'd noticed some of the locals doing this a couple of years ago and I guess they were so busy trying to get to all their local stashes that they hadn't bothered with the small stuff yet...)

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By 1 pm the legs were toast. The GPS said 19,000' vertical - time to call it a day (call it a road trip actually) - that's more than triple what I can do skiing laps for an entire day at my local hills. The hardest part is the 8 hr drive home.

Be back next year...
 
A 3-day, 3 top Eastern area trip not unlike mine in 2003 (Stowe, MRG and Jay). But this one really nailed it for conditions. Was it scheduled ahead or did you do it last minute from the weather prediction?
 
It was absolute luck as far as planning for conditions. The whole trip was predicated on discount days at the hills involved. (The 3 days of lift tickets cost me $118 USD.) I've done variants of this trip for the past 3 years, always anchored with the Friday at Stowe. Two years ago I had similar conditions. Last year was the big thaw. This year was magic - the right skis, the right hills & the right days. I'm sorry I didn't buy a power ball ticket!!!

Funny you should mention your 2003 trip - we did a Vermont family trip in March of 2003 which started on a powder Sunday at Jay (March 9th, Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge Day), followed by 4 days at Stowe and ended with a quick drop down to Killington on Friday, March 14, 2003 - ASC had a $1 day on the Friday at all their eastern resorts - I splurged & treated the whole family to a morning at Killington before driving home to Ontario!
 
I arrived in Montreal Mar. 15, at the end of what had been 2 months of sustained cold weather.
Mar. 16 at Stowe temps rose to 50F but skiing both on and off trail was good: viewtopic.php?t=5012
Mar. 17 at Mad River was T-shirt skiing at 52Fs, good in the bumps, decent on the few groomers, sludgy off-trail: viewtopic.php?t=5013
Mar. 18 at Jay was windy and about 35F, not pretty, mostly frozen granular, ungroomed was for masochists only: viewtopic.php?t=5014

Given all I've read over the years I was pleased to get 2 out of 3 good ski days advance planned in Vermont.
 
Sounds like good discounts . What did you do for Whiteface as they have their spring discount but sounds like you did better. Usually only go there in the spring as regular season price is too high .
 
Anthony:

For the last 5 years every non-holiday Wednesday is Coke day at Whiteface - you show up with a coke product and the lift ticket is half price. Bring an empty as they take it away from you. This deal is for both ORDA run mountains so it applies at Gore as well. They also have periodic "Super Sundays" with $40 lift tickets - I've skied a few of those and they're busier than the Wednesday's but there's also usually add-on activities that are fun to check out. (I still remember having a beverage on the deck watching the "lawn chair ladies" - a synchronized bunch of ladies dressed the same, marching in formation and opening and folding lawn chairs in synch to music.)

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Adam
 
Tony Crocker":1m472ta9 said:
Given all I've read over the years I was pleased to get 2 out of 3 good ski days advance planned in Vermont.

Great trip reports.

I would agree that some years that's what you get in March. Mind you I have the advantage that I'm driving, so I can usually delay a day or two or skip a day that I know will be brutal and act like a tourist instead. It's rare these days that I would book rooms more than 2-3 days in advance and this also allows me to target different hills if somebody (ie. Jay) suddenly gets a major local dumping.

Over the past dozen years I've generally done 2 trips a year to the east - either Quebec, Vermont or New Hampshire. (Maine is on my list...) I've got several photo albums in which I've recorded dates and weather conditions along with the pictures. March looks like an almost 50/50 split regarding conditions, cycling between thin cover, thaw/freeze boilerplate where you pretty much stick to the groomed or powder/packed powder where you get to play in the glades/bumps. I think 2013 will be the latter, and good for the hills, I'm sure they all could use the extended season after last year.

Since this thread's about Stowe, here's a picture of my daughter and niece at the top of Starr, 2003-03-11...
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