Edd
Well-known member
Very good day and my first time at Stowe. It started out on a weird note or two. I left North Conway at about 4:30am and it was snowing out. By the time I neared Crawford Notch it was blizzard conditions. When I hit the top of the notch I could see no further than 5 feet beyond the car. Snow was flying in a dozen different directions. By the time I got a couple of miles past Bretton Woods there were stars out. The entire drive to Stowe consisted of snow covered roads.
When I hit Stowe the wind was kicking hard with single digit temps.. I'm fairly sure wind holds are in my future but I have a Liftoia ticket so onward. It seems as if they got 4 or 5 inches of fresh last night but it's been blown around pretty hard; pretty dense snow. I met up with a dude from Epicski who agreed to show me around. We head up the double from the Mansfield lodge. The quad and gondi are on hold. This guy from Epicski is an instructor at Stowe and probably half my age. He has the day off and wants to find the deepest sickest powder possible. I think we headed down Hayride and shot into some easy trees. We head up the double again and I'm getting the feeling I shouldn't be trying to keep up with this kid. He meets a buddy at the top and the three of us head down Starr; the top is scraped off but it gets good pretty quick with 1 foot drifts. These 2 kids are faster than me and I tell them to move on. I've never been here and I just want to focus on exploring the mountain instead of keeping pace with these guys.
The quad opens up and I start bouncing around quite a bit. Nosedive, Liftline, Lord...everything is skiing well and every trail has some chopped up powder on one side or both.
At one point I cross the street and do a few runs down Sterling and Upper Smugglers (which was fantastic). I check out the fancy new Spruce lodge and don't care for it.. Too cold somehow.
After doing some more runs on Mansfield I see the gondi open up at around 1:45 or so. I take a couple of trips up and hit Upper Perry Merrill, Gondolier, Chin Clip...then I was beat. I managed to squeeze some powder turns out of every run. Very cold but sunny and I got a good impression of the mountain.
When I hit Stowe the wind was kicking hard with single digit temps.. I'm fairly sure wind holds are in my future but I have a Liftoia ticket so onward. It seems as if they got 4 or 5 inches of fresh last night but it's been blown around pretty hard; pretty dense snow. I met up with a dude from Epicski who agreed to show me around. We head up the double from the Mansfield lodge. The quad and gondi are on hold. This guy from Epicski is an instructor at Stowe and probably half my age. He has the day off and wants to find the deepest sickest powder possible. I think we headed down Hayride and shot into some easy trees. We head up the double again and I'm getting the feeling I shouldn't be trying to keep up with this kid. He meets a buddy at the top and the three of us head down Starr; the top is scraped off but it gets good pretty quick with 1 foot drifts. These 2 kids are faster than me and I tell them to move on. I've never been here and I just want to focus on exploring the mountain instead of keeping pace with these guys.
The quad opens up and I start bouncing around quite a bit. Nosedive, Liftline, Lord...everything is skiing well and every trail has some chopped up powder on one side or both.
At one point I cross the street and do a few runs down Sterling and Upper Smugglers (which was fantastic). I check out the fancy new Spruce lodge and don't care for it.. Too cold somehow.
After doing some more runs on Mansfield I see the gondi open up at around 1:45 or so. I take a couple of trips up and hit Upper Perry Merrill, Gondolier, Chin Clip...then I was beat. I managed to squeeze some powder turns out of every run. Very cold but sunny and I got a good impression of the mountain.
