I’m a little late with this report so I’ll keep it brief.
Trust me when I tell you that after a substantial Thanksgiving Day meal, I was “thisclose” to scrapping my plan to drive up to Stowe. But Black Friday is a “freebie” paid holiday for me, and the forecast was for snow showers, so I took my chances in search of my 1st turns of the year.
Glad I did!! All the non-groomed stuff was either “closed” or undesirable; I sampled Christy’s Glade, and while crust wasn’t a problem, the snow was so dense and grabby that anything ungroomed was pretty much out of the question.
But the groomed terrain was skiing very well!! The options were limited to Lord, Ridgeline, N. Slope, Sunrise, and maybe one or two other trails that I’m not remembering. But the snow that fell from 8:30 – 10:30 AM helped things out, and made it seem like (early) Winter on the hill, rather than late Autumn. I was definitely glad I went, and it also gave me the opportunity to:
1. Take the new transfer gondola over to Spruce (although this transfer lift may have been open last year)
2. Check out the pretty stunning new facilities over at Spruce, including the new base lodge, new hotel, etc.
It appears that no expense has been spared with these new developments at Spruce. They reminded me of the upscale base lodge and summit facilities at Snowbasin, UT.
I can’t stress enough that when you get off the transfer Gondola at Spruce, you won’t even recognize the place (until you get to the hill). The change is dramatic.
Anyway, now it’s time to (1) curse these systems that keep cutting up into the St. Lawrence Valley, putting us in the warm sector, and (2) hoping the cold weather supposedly headed for New England later this week can also spin up a big coastal system at some point. I keep hearing that January looks ominous, so I’d really like to see us make hay while the sun is shining…so to speak!
Trust me when I tell you that after a substantial Thanksgiving Day meal, I was “thisclose” to scrapping my plan to drive up to Stowe. But Black Friday is a “freebie” paid holiday for me, and the forecast was for snow showers, so I took my chances in search of my 1st turns of the year.
Glad I did!! All the non-groomed stuff was either “closed” or undesirable; I sampled Christy’s Glade, and while crust wasn’t a problem, the snow was so dense and grabby that anything ungroomed was pretty much out of the question.
But the groomed terrain was skiing very well!! The options were limited to Lord, Ridgeline, N. Slope, Sunrise, and maybe one or two other trails that I’m not remembering. But the snow that fell from 8:30 – 10:30 AM helped things out, and made it seem like (early) Winter on the hill, rather than late Autumn. I was definitely glad I went, and it also gave me the opportunity to:
1. Take the new transfer gondola over to Spruce (although this transfer lift may have been open last year)
2. Check out the pretty stunning new facilities over at Spruce, including the new base lodge, new hotel, etc.
It appears that no expense has been spared with these new developments at Spruce. They reminded me of the upscale base lodge and summit facilities at Snowbasin, UT.
I can’t stress enough that when you get off the transfer Gondola at Spruce, you won’t even recognize the place (until you get to the hill). The change is dramatic.
Anyway, now it’s time to (1) curse these systems that keep cutting up into the St. Lawrence Valley, putting us in the warm sector, and (2) hoping the cold weather supposedly headed for New England later this week can also spin up a big coastal system at some point. I keep hearing that January looks ominous, so I’d really like to see us make hay while the sun is shining…so to speak!