Its Been Fun: Stowe April 21 (Lots of Pictures)

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powderfreak

New member
Kudos to Stowe for staying open. It became evident time was running out
when ski patrol started packing up in the afternoon, the lifties said they
might try to get Saturday in but now it seems as though the forecast for
rain seals the deal. But, in reality, even I was wondering why they were
still open. At 3pm, I was one of three that seemed to still be riding the
lifts.

Parking Lot at noon:
http://tinyurl.com/cxj9o

Views on the drive in:
http://tinyurl.com/czr34
http://tinyurl.com/deww5

There is plenty of snow on parts of the mountain, but the lower elevation
trails back to the quad are hurting:
http://tinyurl.com/7zpqk

A 3 foot wide swath to ski down to some creative catwork if you ventured
down Liftline (closed, but because it was frozen solid in the morning,
corn in the afternoon and people were ducking the rope):
http://tinyurl.com/7bg2s
Here are some more shots of Lower Liftline if you ventured down this far:
http://tinyurl.com/de2t6
http://tinyurl.com/awrvs
Upper Liftline was beautiful:
http://tinyurl.com/92xlw
Skiable snow still in the woods between Starr and Liftline, but it never
softened. Temps at the summit seemed to stay in the upper 20's with base
temps around 40 meant that I was skiing through three different snow
surfaces. Tops were frozen solid, middle portions was some of the
sweetest corn this side of the Mississippi, and lower down was mush.

I ended up walking at least a little on every run I took but that's mostly
because I wasn't on *open* trails. I found the closed runs looked much
more appealing than what WAS open (Some really interesting Catwork was
required to patch together parts of the open runs):
http://tinyurl.com/cum8o
http://tinyurl.com/7da8q
http://tinyurl.com/ayrtt

I took a few adventures over towards the closed Nosedive/Bypass area as
well as over to the Gondola side...great coverage on the upper portions of
all.
Top of Bypass:
http://tinyurl.com/7ob5h
Lower Portions of Bypass Chutes:
http://tinyurl.com/8khyz
Nosedive Corn Fields (still a couple feet deep in there):
http://tinyurl.com/bjwp9
http://tinyurl.com/8gsmm

Over on the Gondi side...it was corn, corn, and more corn with only the
top inch or two softening from last nights freezing temps:
http://tinyurl.com/8o5de
Needed to be a little creative lower down and any runs over here required
taking the skis off and walking 100 yards over to lower Nosedive:
http://tinyurl.com/dp3pu
Lower Perry Merril...a few hundred yards of 10 yard wide perfect corn:
http://tinyurl.com/ascb3

There was some interesting catwork going on over on the Gondi side that
one had to be careful about. Appears as though they were *plowing* out
the work roads to get them to melt out faster...either that or they were
just bored and wanted to play with the cats :)
http://tinyurl.com/d6swh

Another run, this time Nosedive all the way...Lots of snow overall with
one choke point:
http://tinyurl.com/9hkxz
http://tinyurl.com/86rnx
Choke:
http://tinyurl.com/aonw7
Lower down it filled back in with beautiful little beads of corn. Sounded
like I was skiing on a mix of breaking glass and marbles.
http://tinyurl.com/7ea5s

National looked good too...Didn't get to ski it but took pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/8yc56
http://tinyurl.com/c9qxh

It really is too bad they lost all the snow on the lower 500 feet of the
mountain because besides that, there was plenty skiable either on
Nosedive, National, Liftline, and Hayride. Oh Hayride.

Hayride was the best run of the day by far as I got it when it was
softening at around 1pm. They messed up the top of the trail to move snow
onto an *open* trail which really didn't make much sense becaues Hayride
had some of the best coverage on the mountain:
http://tinyurl.com/7unqa
But roll up to that edge and this is what greats you:
http://tinyurl.com/72uyo

I then got stupid and decided to venture into the woods on one of my runs
down Hayride:
http://tinyurl.com/crzpe
http://tinyurl.com/aru9k
It was thin to begin with but got REAL thin quickly.
http://tinyurl.com/76zdk
http://tinyurl.com/dcqzr
I'm a member of the Green Plaid army so I kept my skis on as best I could
and if you look at that last picture, it IS possible to connect the
patches. I wanted to ski all the way down, tinmad. So just as my snow
was running out, Mansfield did not leave me hanging out to dry. She
presented me with a long winding 1-3 foot wide swath of snow down the
mountain:
http://tinyurl.com/dz93l

At this time, I got back to the quad and it was 3pm or so and the chair
was stopped and I noticed it had been stopped when I passed under it a
while ago. Hmmm.
http://tinyurl.com/czeso
Well as soon as I showed up, I looked up and did not see a single person
on the lift. The liftie saw me approach the quad, waved/motioned for me
to come forward, and it started back up. I took one more run and didn't
see a single other soul and was pretty sure I was one of maybe a handful
of people (because there must have been other people since there were 5
cars in the lot and not just mine).

Some parting views:
Looking south from the Octagon area
http://tinyurl.com/da29u
Mansfield from Moscow, VT
http://tinyurl.com/doloe

It was an interesting season. I'm not done by any means, but with the
closure of the lifts, its just one step closer to summer and as I drove
home today I finally noticed the budding trees and how the forests are
starting to get some color. At some point this spring maybe I'll get
around to putting together a timeline of pictures and video clips from the
season. I've spent 30-40 days up there, from the early season hardships,
wandering through woods and on trails lacking the appropriate snow cover,
to the 6-week powder-fest in February and March, to one heck of a stretch
of sun and corn, and finally ending in the last week with more adventure
creative-route finding skiing. It's always an adventure on Mansfield.

I'll miss it. 'Till next season.

-Scott
 
Baldy's cover looks quite good by comparison. They will make May 1 easily, and longer if people show up. Not me, I'll be at Mammoth and Snowbird the following 2 weekends. :)

I have learned with late season thin cover to stay out of the woods. In sustained warm weather trees transmit heat into the soil and melt the nearby snow. Just the opposite from winter when the shade preserves the snow better.
 
Nice report Scott.

I had already decided that Stowe was a no-go for this weekend once I saw the weather. Even if they were to stay open, it certainly would not have been worth the drive associated costs of travel.

My friends have a time-share there every year during school break. We had planned to join them this season. They usually have plenty of skiing, but each year it seems to be less and less.
 
Admin":1r14x988 said:
awf170":1r14x988 said:
what are they going to put up instead of big spruce chair?
Click to expand...

They're replacing the venerable Big Pig with a new detachable quad -- this story is from fall 2004 but includes a brief reference to this summer's project:

http://www.FirstTracksOnline.com/news/s ... 63680.shtm
Click to expand...

just what they need another high speed lift to gets hoards more people on those thin old style trails, that cant handle it :roll:
 
Keep in mind that many of those old-school trails will need to be widened and regraded, too, to accommodate the new snowmaking.
 
Admin":38vgiduc said:
Keep in mind that many of those old-school trails will need to be widened and regraded, too, to accommodate the new snowmaking.
Click to expand...

And they call it progress... #-o

Definately had a fun time on Spruce Peak on my visit in March, oh well, it's was fun will it lasted.

About the closing, I am amazed that made a bold announcement on a May 1st closing. Yes, I know the weather didn't help, but it's the same for everyone. Okay, maybe not that amazed if it came from the PR people. :roll:

I will see how Ste.Anne is holding out tomorrow (hope, I don't get too wet...again). Tremblant had beautiful conditions (approx. 50 trails) for their closing weekend.
 
Big Spruce will definitely be different but I really don't spend as much time over there as I should...I ski there enough that it'd be worth doing some serious exploration during mid-winter with the lower elevation south facing slopes aren't a problem.

One major problem locals had with the new Big Spruce liftline is that it cuts right through some of the best tree skiing over there. They basically had to cut out some of the best groves over there to get the big quad line up the mountain.
 
Admin":14vgomr7 said:
Keep in mind that many of those old-school trails will need to be widened and regraded, too, to accommodate the new snowmaking.
Click to expand...

It is unfortunate that once again traditional northeast trails are being re-graded to accommodate improved lifts and snowmaking. The end result will be overcrowded icy mega ?wide trails that will require even more snowmaking as the wind will blow any natural snow off due to lack of trees. It?s a trade-off, wait at the base with a slow lift or get dropped off at the summit at a record speed and enjoy the bumper-to-bumper crowds on the way down. I was under the impression that this line of thinking was on the decline, even read somewhere that ski areas were trying to reverse the trend of the super wide trails by planting trees. Guess this will not be the case at Mt. Mansfield.
 
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