Stowe 12/13/03

Date(s) Skied: Dec. 13, 2003

Resort or Ski Area: Stowe, VT (Mt. Mansfield)

Conditions: Cold, windy, poor cover, scratchy, icy(boiler plate in spots), hardpack (almost everywhere), crud

Trip Report:

I went to Stowe this weekend. It was cold, 2 degrees at the top of the gondola. It was also very windy, there were some points where it was so windy that you felt like you were being blown back up hill. Lots and lots of gravel, rocks, and tree branched showing, it really did a number on the skis as you were unable to avoid most of it. The trails that had man made snow were very hard packed and some places even had legitimate ICE patches. The Bumps on Gulch were very firm and all of the gullies between the bumps were a combination of ice and crud (stones, branches, rocks, etc). One run we went on looked like Frosty and his buddies had several tag sales there.
Despite the conditions, it was great to be on skis again

Thanks for the report, teach. Sounds like it was a battlezone, for sure. I'm sure it was much better by Monday. Hopefully the rain tomorrow in Northern VT will be brief. There's supposed to be a changeover back to snow so things shouldn't get wrecked as much as they did after last week's rain event.

I was supposed to be there on Monday but took a nasty spill on Saturday and didn't see much sense in hanging around any longer. I hurt my knee, back and neck and ended up with a mild concussion. I am going to be fine in short order though, I already feel 50% better than I did Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I was supposed to be there on Monday but took a nasty spill on Saturday and didn't see much sense in hanging around any longer. I hurt my knee, back and neck and ended up with a mild concussion. I am going to be fine in short order though, I already feel 50% better than I did Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Wow. Sorry to hear that. Get well soon, teach.

Teach - !!

Take it slow and get back on the boards soon. A good Irish cure is a small brandy as symptoms recur.......cheers!

Here's what happened. For starters, I couldn't ski with my glasses because they steamed up. I had the wrong goggles, the ones they do not fit under. My depth perception was totally messed up because of this. When we got to the bottom of GULCH, an intermediate bump run with very thin cover, a sigh of relief came over me(those who have read my previous posts on other sites know that bumps and I do not get along). I let my guard down and was traversing to join up with the rest of the crew on my left. The cat had groomed the cross over and the trail below. There was a drop about a foot or so high between GULCH and the other trail we were merging with. My right leg dropped into the cat track (which I could not see) and hyper-extended. I caught the edge and... well, you know what happened next. I wacked my head in the fall and had a terrible headache, a sore neck and my eyes were playing games with me all the way home. Thankfully, I had my helmet on when I crashed. A 3 1/2 hour drive took more than 5 because I had to keep stopping.

Exhibit A of why not to ski alone - ?? Not trying to be a troll or a jerk, just a question........

I was not skiing alone!

I let my guard down and was traversing to join up with the rest of the crew on my left.

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