Stowe 3/21/9

[billski]

Hmmm. Things are not so hot here. Temps below frrzing made for a very scratchy day all over. Sun softened very insignificant small trail sectins.
Very busy, nearly full parking lots perhaps from club appreciation days.
Too busy trails under quad, very much testosterone-driven in the am.
Gondi was a tad softer, still very hard to push around heavy stuff in between thepatches of scratch.

Spruce had most trail damage, only one run down from sensation quad.
Nothing oo piste was skiable, even down low.

In all areas many closed trails most blacks on Mansfield, many blues on spruce.
It really warmed midweek now freeze has made skiing very difficult for the average skier/boarder. Am hoping it warms into tv 30s Saturday ; need this stuff to soften.

Spruce lodge lunch: $16 burger fries coke.

Planning for late start sat. Hoping it warms more that today.

No pics. Blubird day.

 

[riverc0il]

Thanks for the report, Bill. Was considering going out today but I am not convinced it will warm up enough given the very cold (for the time of year) temps yesterday, last night, and this morning. Might wait for Sunday but will avoid Stowe due to the club days weekend.

 

[billski]

This stuff needs to soften to be more enjoyable. 12f at the house now. With these temps the sun is not enough. I hate to say this, but with no precp in sight, best that can happen is a warm up. Snow in town. Has virtuallydisappeared. 1ft at house and base about 2-3 mid my. His o
Abt 40 at base 30 at summit today. Bet svt will ski well this w/e. Off piste will be sweet when it warms.
Will check out Mexican re in waterbury tonight, meet old friends.

Good. Call, wait.

 

[Warp Daddy]

Thanx Bill for the report

i was thinking of late season trip there i'll bag it now

 

[polski]

yes Bill, appreciate the report. I too was thinking of trying to get out this weekend but "local logistics" would've been tough and with each new forecast the NWS kept dropping high temps until today looked like mid-30s in N VT at best. Of course this morning they're now saying mid-40s and at 10:20 a.m. the base of MRG is reporting 33 ... so, enjoy the afternoon as it may be a beaut.

Anyway, tomorrow (the easier day for me to get out) seems more likely to be a dust-on-crust day (if that) than spring skiing. So, fortunately I've been able to get Wednesday off as that's shaping up as a primo day for harvesting corn. This weekend I'll experience the thrill of doing my taxes while dreaming of the MRG spring skiing day to come ...

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

This stuff needs to soften to be more enjoyable. 12f at the house now. With these temps the sun is not enough. I hate to say this, but with no precp in sight, best that can happen is a warm up. Snow in town. Has virtuallydisappeared. 1ft at house and base about 2-3 mid my. His o
Abt 40 at base 30 at summit today. Bet svt will ski well this w/e. Off piste will be sweet when it warms.
Will check out Mexican re in waterbury tonight, meet old friends.

Good. Call, wait.

I like the early morning rock hard groomers..

 

[billski]

Today was a nearly carbon copy of yesterday. Scratchy and fast. Temps about. 5degees warmer but little diff in piste conditions. Lots of folks opting for cantina instead of piste. Us too.

 

[polski]

Hey Bill, did you stay through today? Sounds like the forecast -SN turned into a bit more than that ... Stowe reporting 5-8", MRG 3-5" though they acknowledge it still amounts to dust-on-crust on the ungroomed steeps. Me, I'm looking forward to harvesting corn Wednesday even more now.


edit: whoops, only seeing your main board thread now. Congrats, look forward to the report. Surprise powder days are one of the great joys in life.

 

[RISkier]

We skied Stowe Friday (3/20). Pretty interesting conditions. I'd call it sand piles separated by ice. And yes on Friday Stowe seemed very testosterone driven. I had two near misses with folks just straight lining busy trails. Probably my least favorite day ever at Stowe. Stowe got heavy rain on Wednesday. An instructor told me he was on the hill with a young student when the clouds opened up. He said it was raining so hard he really couldn't see anything and slowly led the student off the mountain. Froze pretty hard both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Thursday morning things were really fast and loud. None of the blacks opened until noon or so. Spruce is in really tough shape. Went to Sugarbush Saturday and found much better conditions.

 

[billski]

Hey Bill, did you stay through today? Sounds like the forecast -SN turned into a bit more than that ... Stowe reporting 5-8", MRG 3-5" though they acknowledge it still amounts to dust-on-crust on the ungroomed steeps. Me, I'm looking forward to harvesting corn Wednesday even more now.


edit: whoops, only seeing your main board thread now. Congrats, look forward to the report. Surprise powder days are one of the great joys in life.

I had to leave early. Still waiting to hear back from Doug, he skied the day.
I would agree with the MRG reports. The snow had some moisture to it, but it wasn't gonna stick to the steeps in my opinion. I'll bet the mid and low angles were sweet however. Maybe the groomers can work it in with the fgr tonight. A lot of black ropes dropped this AM.

 

[billski]

Stowe Pictures from March 21st

down the double:

Shiny like the top of my head!

There is still plenty of snowpack. It will be nice once it warms.

Sunday AM:

 

[tekweezle]

I was at Stowe this past weekend as well-skied from thursday to sunday.

the first 3 days were spring skiing. cold in the morning, mostly warm and softer in the afternoon. it was spring like on thursday and saturday. Friday didn;t warm up enough in the afternoon. wasn;t the most enjoyable skiing but we made do. i skied so hard, i think i damaged the bases of my skis! there is noticable base burn around the bind areas from me charging through the rock hard moguls and coral rock death cookies. the ptex is pretty loose and stands up in that area now. should have waxed the skis.

there was a guy on the mountain who i swear looked like Bode Miller. I asked him if he was him and he said he was in a half joking manner so didn;t know if he was serious. he really looked like him-about 6-2 and built like a linebacker. i can only go by what I have seen on tv. he was skiing on Nordica Spitfire skis and had baby blue Lange boots. I saw him charge down a steep groomed trail they were doing GS training on like a racer. pretty funny. so does anyone know if Bode Miller was at Stowe this past weekend? they look like they were doing all sorts of NASTAR racing and training.

on sunday, we woke up to heavy snow which was a shocker because there was no mention on the forecast. i guess the weather was so winter like that a suv fell into a ditch by the mountain. so we skied in some nice 6-8 inches of powder, more in some of the wind deposited spots. it was about as awesome as you get in new england. the only annoying thing was that the ski patrol didn;t open up more trails so we ended up skiing on about the same 10-13 trails the entire trip. don;t know if the new snow will last past tomorrow though but it wa amazing what a smal local storm could do to refresh the entire mountain. there were lots of trails that were basically ice rinks of skied off ice and they were great with the new snow.