You want pow? Here's where to go 3/6/6

[billski]

I'm just back from a TERRIFIC 3 days at Stowe, Bolton, Burke.
You want POW? Head to Stowe or Bolton ASAP. Lesser snow at Burke. It's mostly in the woods, but it is DEEP and untracked. It just snowed like mad all day Saturday, the lightest, fluffiest stuff I've seen ALL season.

I'm fairly confident Jay will be just as good. It was quite a band of snow.

I'll write my trip reports later, but I was in the woods all morning today at Stowe. Groomers were windblown, not so hot - snow is IN THE WOODS, but it is fresh and the base is fine. Bolton got 24" in the past 2 days, Stowe 12" groomers are NOT very good, but trees are great, especially for intermediates looking to try out trees for a first time.

Get your sick day /powder day excuse polished, get those boards packed. Temps around 30-32 at the base are forecasted for all week.

More later in trip reports.

GO GO GO!

p. s., this is not "epic", as in all-time, but it is very, very fine skiing for this season, perhaps the best days.

 

[pepperdawg]

Way to get some Bill...!!!!

yet another reason Northern VT should be categorized as its own entity!!!!! North of 89 is where its at (94.137% of the time...

Stowe, Smuggs, Burke, Bolton.....all goodness!!!!

 

[riverc0il]

interestingly enough, cannon got more than burke which was part of my decision to abandon plans for burke on sunday in favor of cannon. burke doesn't usually get the upslope snow that the northern greens get. though cannon's glades are always just plan nasty whenever they are open, which is rarely. burke definitely takes it for glades compared to cannon regardless of the snow fall. though burke only has the sasqwatch glade open.

jay, stowe, and smuggs at least had a base to put this stuff on. that was the problem with cannon and burke, no base. i look forward to giving bolton a more serious outting eventually. my initial impressions from earlier this season (october 23rd!!!) indicated the mountain is rather flat, but i hear good things about glades and OB options.

 

[billski]

interestingly enough, cannon got more than burke which was part of my decision to abandon plans for burke on sunday in favor of cannon. burke doesn't usually get the upslope snow that the northern greens get. though cannon's glades are always just plan nasty whenever they are open, which is rarely. burke definitely takes it for glades compared to cannon regardless of the snow fall. though burke only has the sasqwatch glade open.

jay, stowe, and smuggs at least had a base to put this stuff on. that was the problem with cannon and burke, no base. i look forward to giving bolton a more serious outting eventually. my initial impressions from earlier this season (october 23rd!!!) indicated the mountain is rather flat, but i hear good things about glades and OB options.

When you have a family of 5 with skills ranging from braving intermediate to stem-christies/snowplow, you really start to examine places like Bolton much more seriously. As a single adult skier, I understand how you view this differently than I. I selected Bolton and it was great for my crew. More importantly, we saved HUNDREDS of bucks NOT skiing as a family at Stowe or SB or Jay for example. They simply would not take advantage of most of the mountain. I had one member, shall we say, who only skied 2 runs all day. So, I start looking at the cash outlay and it gets ex$pensive fa$t.
"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ??? paying for skiing with wads of money filling up the baby carriage" (to bastardize my 9-year old's jump rope rhyme). [ see what you have to look forward to? ]

So to amuse myself, I took off for the off-track when they all went in for their 1.5 hour "rest". Everyone wins...

 

[riverc0il]

see what you have to look forward to?

you assume i want/will have kids

i completely endorse bolton as a GREAT family mountain. right up there with lots of other cheaper hidden gems. their generally favorable disposition to great natural snow really puts them at the top of the family friendly cheaper alternatives list for snow dependability.

 

[sledhaulingmedic]

you assume i want/will have kids

Get used to it, Riv. My wife and I still get the "When are you two going to have..." and the it's clear the biological clock is so far past midnight, you'd think they'd be smart enough not to ask. In a word, "No"

 

[trackbiker]

When you have a family of 5 with skills ranging from braving intermediate to stem-christies/snowplow, you really start to examine places like Bolton much more seriously. As a single adult skier, I understand how you view this differently than I. I selected Bolton and it was great for my crew. More importantly, we saved HUNDREDS of bucks NOT skiing as a family at Stowe or SB or Jay for example. They simply would not take advantage of most of the mountain. I had one member, shall we say, who only skied 2 runs all day. So, I start looking at the cash outlay and it gets ex$pensive fa$t.
"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ??? paying for skiing with wads of money filling up the baby carriage" (to bastardize my 9-year old's jump rope rhyme). [ see what you have to look forward to? ]

So to amuse myself, I took off for the off-track when they all went in for their 1.5 hour "rest". Everyone wins...

Just goes to show you, "sometimes you can have your cake at eat it too".
I'm pretty damn lucky. My son LOVES skiing. We're always trying to get one more run in before the lifts close. He LOVES fishing. The first time I took him, thinking he was getting bored, I asked if he was ready to go. He said, "Can I have one more cast?!" He LOVES biking... "Dad, I think we can go a few more miles before we head back."
After skiing all day at Elk with a 20 minute break, now that he's skiing the bumps, I don't know how much longer my 46 yr. old knees will keep up with him. We took a bus today; but the nice thing is, next season, he can drive home and I can sleep!

 

[Marc]

I never got that saying.

When in the hell did anyone ever get cake and then not be able to eat it?

That has never happened to me. Shouldn't the case where you have cake and are not able to eat it be the exception rather than the rule? Dumb.




I should probably drink some more now...

 

[Marc]

By the way, I'm insanely jealous Bill.


A friend and I have seriously considered buying a house together somewhere on the stretch of 91 centered between MRV and Jay. Coulda got some of this... Balls.

 

[riverc0il]

marc, i agree with you about that saying. i often use it, but every time i do i hesitate because it doesn't really make sense literally or figuratively. i am sure people speaking english as a second language have a heck of a time with that saying!

 

[smootharc]

These Sugarbush pics have a near epic feel to them....

I'm just back from a TERRIFIC 3 days at Stowe, Bolton, Burke.
You want POW? Head to Stowe or Bolton ASAP. Lesser snow at Burke. It's mostly in the woods, but it is DEEP and untracked. It just snowed like mad all day Saturday, the lightest, fluffiest stuff I've seen ALL season.

p. s., this is not "epic", as in all-time, but it is very, very fine skiing for this season, perhaps the best days.

http://www.telemarkskier.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=002137;p=1#000000

 

[skibum1321]

The woods at Smuggs were really nice on Sat and Sun. For the most part there was a base to put it on, but I still hit a ton of rocks, stumps and miscellaneous stuff under the snow. I had tons of thigh deep pow in the woods. The upper mountain trails were all really windblown with pretty much no snow.

This weekend brought out every gaper and his brother. I think they all went for the woods and whenever they hit something halfway challenging they decided to slide down it and scrape all of the snow off of it. For example, there is a nice little drop off a waterfall to enter a line and it was sweet first tracks Sat morning. I went again Sunday afternoon and it was totally scraped off and insanely sketchy. For the record there were only 2 other tracks at the bottom of this section so someone obvioulsy just slid this entire section. This was even in some of the more remote spots on the mountain. Where is the pet peeves thread...I have one to add...

 

[atkinson]

North of 89, it's own entity?

edited to add: Sorry smoothie. I didn't see your post before putting up the link. Near epic? What the heck is that? If that picture of Rick isn't fully epic, then I don't know what is.

Sugarbush only got 4" according to the NWS. Everybody knows the best stuff is always north of 89, right?

If you want to see how lame it was at the Bush, click here.

John
www.catamounttrail.org

 

[smootharc]

North vs. South of I-89....

Everybody knows the best stuff is always north of 89, right?

....is an interesting comparison, snow total wise, as another thread has mentioned (can't remember - perhaps the SB thread before SkiMRV.com came into existence), but we touched upon how Stowe claims 333" annual on their website, and Sugarbush 275", I think. Someone mentioned something about the green mountain crest from lincoln to stark having it's own little snow booster (orological ?) thing going based on various factors, which have historically resulted in quite a good total for the areas just a bit south of 89. Anyways, good to hear everyone got some of the good stuff.

Looking out Sunday from the top of MRG over to Mansfield, it seems you could reach out and touch it, and I-89 was nowhere in sight.

BTW, for my two days last weekend at MRG, there was no wind hold, though I guess the Bush was wind hold quite a bit. MRG on Saturday was just great for freshies, and this dad got his fair share and more even showing up late and getting my two little guys into their lessons. Seems the more I look, the more I find at MRG.

 

[billski]

....is an interesting comparison, snow total wise, as another thread has mentioned (can't remember - perhaps the SB thread before SkiMRV.com came into existence), but we touched upon how Stowe claims 333" annual on their website, and Sugarbush 275", I think. Someone mentioned something about the green mountain crest from lincoln to stark having it's own little snow booster (orological ?) thing going based on various factors, which have historically resulted in quite a good total for the areas just a bit south of 89. Anyways, good to hear everyone got some of the good stuff.

Looking out Sunday from the top of MRG over to Mansfield, it seems you could reach out and touch it, and I-89 was nowhere in sight.

BTW, for my two days last weekend at MRG, there was no wind hold, though I guess the Bush was wind hold quite a bit. MRG on Saturday was just great for freshies, and this dad got his fair share and more even showing up late and getting my two little guys into their lessons. Seems the more I look, the more I find at MRG.

I had an interesting perspective of skiing at Bolton on Friday, Burke on Sat. and Stowe on Sun. (I will write my reports when time permits, for now, sound-bites must suffice.)

We stayed with friends 2 miles from Mansfield off Mt road. Wicked bad winds, started at our Thursday arrival and continued through Sat. night. quite strong gusts.

Fri/ Bolton was snowing like mad all day - the access road was a real adventure in our fwd minivan. Light wind, but quite cold for march. I can only say it dumped all day Friday when we were there. My wife was frightened to death with the driving (me) around Bolton. No windholds. Awesome snow in the woods, but they had a LOT of PP on the trails.

Sat/Burke - snowed real heavy, less so as we traveled east towards Burke, strong winds, but the winds diminished as we approached I-81. Snowed all day, about 6-8", mix of PP and scraped off fgr. no windholds. As we drove back to stowe, the snows had subsided, it was deeper and deeper the closer we got, but the winds had swept most of it into the woods, in the valley and hills.

Sun/Stowe - winds really dropped down by 8am. Windhold on the quad and gondi in am. Neighbors bi***ed that they had wind holds for 3 straight days. 10am quad running, noon - gondi. All the snow was in the woods of course. Incredible snow depths, even on the shallow pitched stuff, but that's been reported to death. Scratchy on all the marked trails, pow only on the edges. Skies were generally clear, except for what they called a "wind cloud" atop mansfield.

This had to be the lightest, most, glistening white stuff I've seen in years. It was really disappointing to have to stop.

 

[foofy]

I was at Burke Saturday and Sunday and it was amazing. Powder to be had everywhere. On trail, woods, everywhere.