JD
New member
Some debate as to where to head today, we ended up going back to a recently discovered zone near Stowe. It was cold. 10 below when the three of us loaded up in the car in Hyde Park. Driving over we were drooling over the cream drifts evident along the road side hugging every boulder. When we got to skinning we realized everything was heavily wind affected and ski penetration on the skin was about 2 inches. Up a logging road, crossed a brook that had barely refrozen since Tuesday, and into the zone. This particular aspect is completely sheltered from the 40mph winds that buffeted the area in the last few days....as we got into the lee of the land mass the snow softened. As we got up above 2500ft., it deepened, and as we closed in on the skiiable terrain we had 10-20 soft snow. The other folks were calling it 14, but I didn't think cover was even enough to warrent a single snow depth number. On our first 2 runs, we didn't really put it together too well. We got sucked into a steep creekbed that was not ready to ski yet and it was hard to get out. We did find a few short interesting lines down thru the steeps, but the runs were disjointed. On the third and fourth runs we put it together much better. It was sunny and cold. The snow was slow due to temps so some shuffling was needed to cross some of the shelves in between the steeps. It was a beautiful day. All in all, we decided that the rain, then snow pretty much equalled out on snow depths from Mansfield on North. But it is much nice to have a wind packed base down instead of one formed by a thaw and refreeze. In general, natural woods are in, but still a little sketchy. Looking forward to moderating temps and some days exploring this area further. My Cam batteries died early today, not much worthwhile footage, but a real nice day out up north, 4 laps and one exploratory travers at the end....we have recovered from the thaw, at least north of Rt. 2, Dog fish head 60 minutes and my feet close to the wood stove for the rest of the night.
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