sven
New member
Having been lured in by overzealous snowfall reporting, I made the drive up to Jay from New York.... it flurried on and off the whole day, nothing significant really, and I found pretty similar conditions all across the mountain - skied off icy glades and even icier trails. Staircase was particularly scratchy and a bit bare, and I stuck to Evergreen Glade most of the day (is that its name? Two new ski areas in 2 days has me all confused) Met someone on the lift who told me to head over to Beaver Pond Glade, which turned out to be the run i did laps on the rest of the day - it was decent, but definitely not powdery by any means.
Deterred by my hopes & dreams being completely shattered by reality, I decided that I'd head down to Stowe to check out how conditions were there. Definitely a good decision... conditions at Stowe seemed like there was alot more fresh snow in the recent past, some trails had a bit of ice but I'd say that 90% of the trails were very edgeable packed powder, especially as it warmed up towards the end of the day. The best runs were off Bypass (I suppose these were the Bypass Chutes that I've always heard of but never seen for myself, since this was my first time skiing Stowe). I actually managed to find a few spots of fresh snow to ski through, and what wasnt fresh was still decently soft & fun to throw some jump turns down in. Not the waist deep snow I've seen photos of on here, but enough to get me psyched considering my best day this year was December 8 after 8 inches fell at Hunter Mountain (thats an objectively good day - but most years I've had a higher standard to beat). At the end of the day everything softened up to perfect corn snow, and the lower parts around Bypass were starting to get first sloppy/sticky, then kind of gritty when it started firming up again as the sun disappeared from those slopes. I skied the bottom half of Goat which seemed to be shaping up into a decent bump run, but it didnt really soften up as much as I would have hoped, and the bumps right now arent too big. It was not really icy, but extremely firm. A few bare spots on Goat were to be found and they came up rather quickly.... I luckily escaped with bases unscathed. The top of Goat looked like a real mess, it definitely was no surprise that it was closed. But all in all it was a great day.... I think Stowe is now my favorite eastern resort, I tried not to look at the lift ticket price when I tossed the ticket guy my credit card, and he gave a very cold reception to my wiseass comment about it being pricy - I guess he gets that like 300 times per day.
Sven
Deterred by my hopes & dreams being completely shattered by reality, I decided that I'd head down to Stowe to check out how conditions were there. Definitely a good decision... conditions at Stowe seemed like there was alot more fresh snow in the recent past, some trails had a bit of ice but I'd say that 90% of the trails were very edgeable packed powder, especially as it warmed up towards the end of the day. The best runs were off Bypass (I suppose these were the Bypass Chutes that I've always heard of but never seen for myself, since this was my first time skiing Stowe). I actually managed to find a few spots of fresh snow to ski through, and what wasnt fresh was still decently soft & fun to throw some jump turns down in. Not the waist deep snow I've seen photos of on here, but enough to get me psyched considering my best day this year was December 8 after 8 inches fell at Hunter Mountain (thats an objectively good day - but most years I've had a higher standard to beat). At the end of the day everything softened up to perfect corn snow, and the lower parts around Bypass were starting to get first sloppy/sticky, then kind of gritty when it started firming up again as the sun disappeared from those slopes. I skied the bottom half of Goat which seemed to be shaping up into a decent bump run, but it didnt really soften up as much as I would have hoped, and the bumps right now arent too big. It was not really icy, but extremely firm. A few bare spots on Goat were to be found and they came up rather quickly.... I luckily escaped with bases unscathed. The top of Goat looked like a real mess, it definitely was no surprise that it was closed. But all in all it was a great day.... I think Stowe is now my favorite eastern resort, I tried not to look at the lift ticket price when I tossed the ticket guy my credit card, and he gave a very cold reception to my wiseass comment about it being pricy - I guess he gets that like 300 times per day.
Sven