Stowe, VT 12/11/04 & 12/12/04

Current Weather: 34 degrees, freezing rain (even at the top)

Skiing Conditions: Heavy snow, the conditions were great until around 11AM. Considering the limited amount of natural snow they have received so far this season, the base is surprising soft, with very little ice before things get skied off. After 11AM, things degraded considerably, as all skier traffic fed into lower North Slope, or lower Lord. Skiing down lower Lord was like running the gauntlet, trying to avoid the mass of skiers who obviously were not so keen on skiing bumps. The mountain was very crowded by 8:30AM, I except more of the same crowds tomorrow.

Demo days are this weekend. The event is totally free, and this morning they even had free bagels + creme cheese at the registration table. If you are interested in snowboarding or telegear, they have vendors onsite providing the entire kit (boots and board) if neccessary, again no charge.

12/12 Report

Weather Conditions: Very snowy in the AM. The snow slowed up around 11, but continued through at least 3:00 when I called it a day. I would guess that they picked up 2-4 inchs of very soft, but wind blown snow, as the poached lines from Sat on lift line completely filled in on the first chair up, and by the end of the day, the first lines down today were nearly filled in already. Temps were cold and windy. The day started out around 25 and just got colder, it was 18 at the summit when I left.

Snow Conditions - Calling "it" snow is a friendly term. The snow was firm and groomed at the start of the day, very nice actually - I did two top to bottom runs in about 20 minutes and the conditions were perfect for my T-Power 9S's. By the end of the day, the lower sections of the mountain were completely slick with true ice. The ice was so bad that instead of the snow mounding up in areas like it typically does, there would be entire pitches of just sheer ice, mostly like from intermediate skiers sideslipping down the entire way.

Crowds - SMR is run by fools. The only lift running on the big mtn this morning was the quad, and the lift line was so severe by 10:00 that I went over to Spruce to check out the new "Sunny Spruce" Quad, and was pleasently surprised to find nice firm, but skiable conditions and a very fast, no line quad. I did 5 runs in about 40 minutes over there. At 11:00 I ate an early lunch, and by the time I hiked back up to the quad, the line had thinned nicely and the lookout double was in operation. By 1:30 no one was really left on the mountain, the quad had no lift line - you could ski right on.

My ski's made it on Stowe's "Photo of the Day" web page, pretty funny. Here's the URL http://www.stowe.com/mountain/gallery/b ... rchive.php - my ski's are rae the yellow / white skis with black bindings planted in the snow in front of the salomon sign.

All in all, I got in 20 runs - 15 on mansfield, 5 on Spruce, giving me a daily total of about 35K vert. I hope I can walk tomorrow.

Jay Suds":3klh19kq said:

All in all, I got in 20 runs - 15 on mansfield, 5 on Spruce, giving me a daily total of about 35K vert.

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Oh, to be 22 again!

Admin":9dd0z304 said:

Jay Suds":9dd0z304 said:

All in all, I got in 20 runs - 15 on mansfield, 5 on Spruce, giving me a daily total of about 35K vert.

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Oh, to be 22 again!

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LOL, and I wish I was 16 again, because then I would have skied right until 4 and I would have only stopped 15 minutes for lunch, not 45 Hopefully by the end of the season I will regain my old stamina