Stratton 11/23

[Madroch]

Belated TR from Stratton, Friday 11/23. After viewing ski reports with an eye toward acreage, expected crowds, and nature of terrain/lifts available- headed to Stratton Friday because they had a nice little trail pod off ursa express open with several ways down- and more acreage than most within driving distance save Kton- which I figured would be a zoo and lack any real continuity on the way down/ability to lap anything consistently. I hadn't been to Stratton in maybe 25 years??? Arrived at 8:30- place was empty- primo parking spot. Booted up rode the gondi over green grass and then Skied Grizzly, polar, NA and one intermediate trial(brown of black bear) all day- lapping Ursa. They had one trail open to bottom- flat, thin cover ,etc-- but they stated as much by indicating it was for bottom access purposes only. Off ursa, cover was good, some hard pack- mostly on polar bear-- everthing but polar bear bumped up a little (probably becausae polar got the least traffice) and some spots were quite heavy, as expecte as it Got real warm-- temp at URSA base mid mountain read 61 late morning. Skied all day from 9:00 to 3:30-- got a littel busy around lunch-- but never a wait of more than 1-2 minutes for the chair-- Ski tracks suggested I logged 26K vertical off 19 runs- so I definately got my moneys worth and got the legs tuned up-- was pretty tired by the day after the mashed potatoes and mini bumps. All in all, a good day and thought Stratton offered a pretty good product for southern vermont, given recent inversion etc. One thing, Stratton has not gotten any steeper-- thier double diamond- grizzly- was ridiculously tame-- but I could see bringing the family for some cruising some day this year.

 

[bdfreetuna]

26k vert is pretty good for November!

 

[powhunter]

Sounds like ya caught a nice first day

Steveo