Mount Snow 8/31/2008

What better to do on a Sunday AM when you surrived Day 1 of Mount Snow's Brewfest 2008 and have a few hours to kill before Day 2 of Brewfest starts then to grab a couple of bikes and take to the trails of Mount Snow! Myself, who is quite comfortable on your basic fireroads etc, but is definately NOT a downhiller on 2 wheels, got myself talked into some downhilling by a bunch of beers on Saturday, a friend of mine who is a semi psycho downhiller and our wives(of course they went shopping instead)

First run was right off the summit down what in winter is Deer Run(a nice work road in the summer), for no other reason than to give me a few miles to get used to a full suspension bike and an extended downhill run. 1 or 2 "Oh sh*^'s" from me and I was ready to get off the work road and onto the single track off of Canyon Quad for the next 3 hours until the taps opened up.

For the most part considering it was my "downhill devirgination" and as my friend put it, "some of these trails are freakin' psycho" I had a blast and only once did I put the bike down and atleast for the rest of that run lost some confidence But a quick trip back up Canyon Quad and some fast, smooth single track down the course they used a few weeks ago on Snowdance for the SoBe downhill series, and I was feeling good again. Then for our last run, we figured that we'd take the trail was was labled as the toughest trail on the map(I left the map up in VT, and I can't recall the name, but it starts on what in ski season was Un Blanco Gulch, then cuts across Standard and into the trees between Charlies Chase/Countdown and Standard and then back across Standard to basically the top of the beginner hill. Well, missing 1 bridge crossing and then a couple of falls in the wooded single track, I was done, and felt that after 3 hours, 6 runs and almost 7000 vertical feet descended, I felt that I more than deserved spending the next 4.5 hours sitting on a comfy chair at the base of Mount Snow with good friends drinking many good beers, listening to a good band and eating some Steamed Mayland Crabs

sounds like ya had a great day!!!!!!!!

drjeff - did you run into any of the KZoners wearing the "Killington Refugee" shirts?

I think is was around 1995 or so when I first got on a mountain bike. My buddy won passes at Mount Snow and asked me to come along. It was the first time on a bike since I was a kid and an interesting experience to say the least. Not sure I'd be into lift-serviced downhill all that much, but I might like to try Mount Snow again at some point. Sounded like a great day.

SkiDork said:

drjeff - did you run into any of the KZoners wearing the "Killington Refugee" shirts?

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Yup, I saw them from afar. Couldn't miss Rusty K(recognized him from some pics I've seen over at Kzone) with the K refugee shirt on, and he seemed to be camped out equidistant between the Harpoon Tent and the Dogfishhead Tent. Phantom and G Smashed seemed to never be far from a tent either and Mountain Man seemed to be doing the most "roaming" although it never seemed to be more than maybe 20 feet from a tent

I'd say that in General, they had atleast 1000 people there on Saturday and close to that on Sunday, and at the end of the fest on Sunday they announced that over 150 kegs were consumed during the 2 days :beer: :beer:

Greg said:

I think is was around 1995 or so when I first got on a mountain bike. My buddy won passes at Mount Snow and asked me to come along. It was the first time on a bike since I was a kid and an interesting experience to say the least. Not sure I'd be into lift-serviced downhill all that much, but I might like to try Mount Snow again at some point. Sounded like a great day.

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Yup, a real fun day, and I've been dealing with my wife asking me multiple times since Sunday "so when will you be coming home with a snazzy new bike?"

Also, after seeing some of the now roped off single track descents that they used a few weeks back at Mount Snow for the Pro Downhill at the US Nationals, OMG are those riders completely psycho!