Stowe 4/24

[powderfreak]

Yet another gorgeous spring day to be on the mountain. Driving through
Waterbury Center, Mansfield stood tall and white above her surroundings.

http://tinyurl.com/2cqqzo

Riding the quad, one cannot help but stare.

http://tinyurl.com/25vm88

We lost a good deal of lower elevation snow over the past 48 hours but I
guess base temps nearing 80 will do that. No matter, one could still ski
back to the lift without a problem though the woods route at the very bottom
that was skiable on Sunday is now gone. The upper elevation trails are
still business as usual. National was looking sweet.

http://tinyurl.com/2evujc

At the top, the views were awesome as one could see Superstar at Killington,
Sugarbush, and Mount Washington stood out like Kilimanjaro on the horizon.
Here, the northern Greens are still buried in a good late April snowpack.

http://tinyurl.com/28ww4u

I had been keeping my eye out for Jim as I knew there was a chance he might
show up...after my second run I spotted his truck pulling into the lot. Its
always nice to have some company on such a nice day. The snow had set up a
little bit but the top layer was still silky smooth. We hit Hayride a
couple of times and ventured into Major Jones twice. Did a Nosedive run and
found the snow over there to be a little more firm on the upper switchbacks
but the middle section was very smooth. What a sweet pitch that trail has
for as far as the eye can see after the upper Switchbacks.

Here's Jumpin' Jim Clapp ripping Hayride under a very blue sky.
http://tinyurl.com/yphhgw
http://tinyurl.com/27exxl
http://tinyurl.com/257yr2

And here's a couple of Jim enjoying some phine, late-April tree skiing in
Major Jones.
http://tinyurl.com/24wp3a
http://tinyurl.com/yuy56y

The trees back there were a lot of fun; it was nice to return to some woods
after a couple days of trail skiing due to the warm temps. With slightly
cooler temps at night, the snowpack was firming up below but the April sun
still baked the top layer into silk that one could trust. Nothing like
adding a few obstacles into the mix but there's still plenty of snow to ski
a lot of the mid-elevation hardwoods.

Lastly, some of yours truely taken by Jim.
http://tinyurl.com/273yvx
http://tinyurl.com/266tyw

Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday afternoon in late April. Hope to do it
again soon.

Driving back down the hill, I stopped to look at the stream flowing behind
the Matterhorn...it was flowing alright. Nice, crystal clear snowmelt type
water and all I almost wished I had a kayak with me.
http://tinyurl.com/27w7ry

-Scott

 

[JimG.]

A timely report for me...I'll be in Shelburne with my oldest son for a couple of soccer games on Saturday 4/28. Stowe looks like the obvious choice for skiing on Sunday.

What do you think about the weather for the end of the week and do you think the trees will hold up for Sunday?

 

[powderfreak]

Jim,

Check out my report from today, re: trees. Weekend weather looks mostly cloudy and showery but precipitation looks to be mostly light and garden variety in nature. Of course, Mansfield is on top of the list of any place that'll see rainfall...the downside of a lot of precipitation is once it turns to rain, it doesn't lighten up. But I'm not too worried about it and think the novelty of skiing 90% of the terrain off the quad in almost-May is pretty cool.

We skied the trees down to 2,000ft today so it was 1,600 verts of treeskiing possible and 400 verts you must finish up on the trails. I'm sure you could get really creative and still make it down another couple hundred feet but we stopped skiing the trees where we'd normally stop skiing the trees in mid-winter...if that makes any sense. All the way to the bottom of the Tower 13 pitch of Liftline...

 

[JimG.]

Thanks Scott, much appreciated.

After careful consideration of the weather, we wound up at Killington yesterday. After reading riverc0il's Jay report from 4/28, we made the right move. The weather turned on us for the weekend, but no biggie. At least we were closer to home at the end of the day.

Killington featured steady drizzle, fog, zero visibility, and boot top slush. Snow was heavy and wet everywhere. You could still see alot of snow in the woods, but it was patchy and didn't look like much fun. So I stuck to slush bumps and had a decent enough day skiing Cascade, Double Dipper, East Fall, Escapade (very thin), etc. over on the K1 gondola. At least the lift rides were dry. Superstar quad was closed and the area from the base of the quad to the lodge was melted out, so I didn't even bother skiing Superstar. I like the K1 runs better anyway.

Kind of a dreary last lift served day, but hey, it's the end of April.