Stowe: 4/19

[riverc0il]

Not that this report matters much since this was Stowe's last day. Perfect spring day today at Stowe, at least as far as weather and snow conditions were concerned. Crowds were to be a different matter entirely...

Snow took a little while to soften up on the bump trails but the non-bump runs were skiing sensationally in the AM!!! I actually had a blast cruising on the blue squares off the Forerunner.

By 11am, things were starting to soften up and the crowds arrived en masse. Can Drive day at Stowe was surely a stellar success. Unfortunately, they only had the Forerunner loading so the crowds were massive. I waited in a lift line worse than I have waited for at Jay on all but the biggest powder days. I started spending more time in line than actually skiing. Composition of the crowd was decidedly UVM and StMike's students who decided to have a snowball fight in the lift line while waiting. Once seven dozen snowballs were up in the air all at once, they had to shut the lift down to simmer things down (thankfully). Personally, I don't mind college kids being college kids. But I do mind having to dodge snowballs in the 15 minute lift line. No thanks.

I called it a day early around 1pm. Not having skied much this season and only having skied one bump day during that season, my bump legs were not much into it. I just didn't have the heart to hold out 15 minutes per lift line for a suffer fest. The bumps that I did ski were amazingly superior to Bush's bumps two weeks ago at LP. They might be better now for all I know. Good lines at Stowe, might tighter than I saw at LP two weeks ago. Too bad they are calling it a season. They could run the Forerunner for at least one more week with no walking required... two weeks easily with minor stretches breaking down. They certainly had enough guests today to have had the double running as well....

:dunce:

 

[WoodCore]

Steve, You should have gone to Jay!! Great day on the hill up there today, plenty of lifts running and not many bodies lurking.

 

[riverc0il]

I got tickets to use up. Just didn't work out with the amount of people that showed up but I never would have thought it would have been that crowded even with the can day. Gotta respect Jay for going later than Stowe and for running more than one lift!! *COUGH*

 

[Mikey1]

I was there Sunday as well and agree with your assessment of the skiing, it was really a great spring skiing day. My last ski trip to Stowe was back in the 70's, so I looked at this as almost like visiting a new area. In fact the guy I was with had never been there before, so we both just wandered around like gapers at first. The lift lines were a bit of a drag, but the first 5 minutes of the snowball fight was fun. After that, it was just annoying.

Harvested a mixture of sweet corn, soft bumps, and some woods. Hayride was fun, and we also hit Starr, Liftline, National, and Nosedive. Our last three runs of the day were Bypass to Nosedive Glades and we skied right up to last chair. If that was my last day this year, it was a good one to go out on! Will definitely be back next season.