Stowe 3-23/24

[kingslug]

Insane crowds both days..Saturday only triple ran until 230..conditions were primo
Goat top to bottom run of the day
some carnage on Starr which I did not venture down
Some hikers heading up
Glad I brought the BIG Bazookas as they made it...easy. Especially when it all turned to mash on Sunday afternoon.
Saturday stood in line in 50 mph winds ..forever..all day. This skiing thing is...nuts.

 

[Ol Dirty Noodle]

Wtf?!? Is that a lift line????

 

[slatham]

Heard no wind or crowd issues at Bolton. How can so many Stowe skiers not realize the wind/crowd issue and go elsewhere?

 

[abc]

I'm not there so can't speak for people who were there. But I can think of several reason why staying there is appealing:

1) You have a pass there. So it's free. You do as many runs as you feel like and call it a day.

2) With limited lift capacity, every run is a fresh track. So it's worth the wait.

There maybe more reasons, but those are the ones came immediately to my mind.

 

[kingslug]

Yup..my place is there..I knew it would be nuts but got very good runs in and the wait till 230 paid off with that run down Goat.
The locals are saying that Vail shuts down for windhold much more than ever before. Risk management.

 

[xlr8r]

Was there Saturday and Sunday too. Saturday I started off hopping on the bus over to Spruce when I saw that the only 2 lifts running were the mountain triple and the meadows quad, figuring that the triple would get mobbed. Got 2 fun but short runs off meadows before they shut that down (I think it was shut down because it was a strong head wind and people were having trouble getting off the lift and out of the way before the chair would swing around the bullwheel, chairs weren't swinging side to side that much). By now I had heard that the lines at the mountain triple were over an hour long and could see from spruce that the line was backed up to the fourrunner storage barn. I thought of bolting over to Bolton as that realistically was the only bail out option considering it was now about 10am, but saw on their website that both the Wilderness and Vista were on windhold there too. So then I started my extremely long lunch break at the Spruce lodge waiting for some other lift to open. After noon I was starting to get a bit mad at Stowe/Vail management as it was clear the wind had died down considerably. Finally I decided to see how long the mountain triple line really was around 1pm, and the singles line ended up being about a half hour wait. Did a nice long run through the glades to toll house when the liftie there told me that the quad was opening. What followed were 4 epic runs down Centerline-Hayride, Liftline, National, and Nosedive-Rimrock-Gondolier. The snow was so dense yet dry from all the wind, It was probably the fastest powder skiing I have done. The day started with 6 hours of frustration and ended with 4 runs of bliss. In the end it was worth it.

Sunday was great all around. There was a huge crowd for first chair at 7:30am (must have been 300 people in line by the time they dropped the rope on the quad). The wind refreshed anything not groomed so got a couple runs down Liftline and National to start the day that were almost as good as Saturday. Gondi opened early as the line for the quad was quickly getting outrageously long. Everything was good though the snow did soften up quick as the temps rose, the dense dry powder did not last long.

 

[kingslug]

The line at the triple was really about 1/2 hour..standing in the wind made it seem longer..my wife lasted 2 runs and went home. I did run into 2 ladies who were willing to stick it out all day and spent the day flying around with them. I figured I had nothing else to do so might as well get as many runs in as possible. Ski patrol was very busy.