Stratton 12/8/07

[MRGisevil]

Date(s) Skied: 12/8/2007

Resort or Ski Area:Stratton

Conditions: Not too cold and sunny in the morning, cloudy with flurries in the afternoon.

Trip Report: Awesome day. Stratton had around 60 trails open and most were covered well by a 2" drop they recieved the night before. Started the day off with a trip on the Gondola, which was the only downpoint (long line and a touch of claustrophobia). It was extremely windy at the summit, but the wind wasn't a problem once you traveled about 50-100 ft down any trail.

Tim and I played with the bears most of the day. We started out taking a few runs on Black Bear/Polar Bear and then switched to Grizzly and Bear Bottom in the afternoon. Don't expect anything special out of Polar, Grizzly or Bottom- they're still pretty tame. Felt more like skiing blues than blacks today.

Toured Upper Tamarack and hit the Mid Mountain lodge for a water break. The afternoon found some parts of Grizzly and Bear Bottom skied off and icy, but snow started to fall around 2pm, so by tomorrow they might be running strong again.

All in all it was a fun day- light 'n fluffy without too much of crowd. I took some vid and will post later.

 

[Greg]

Cool. Sounds like a good day. Looking forward to the vid!

 

[artooman]

I also made the trip to Stratton today. This was my first time to the mountain so I was excited. We like the fact that it is only 2:15 hours from Worcester. To my dismay, the excitement quickly subsided. I have to say that I was extremely unimpressed with the flat terrain, the aggravating trail layout, the conditions, and the crowds. I give this place a C-. Maybe I am being too harsh here... but as an advanced skier with only 3 years of experience, I wasn't happy.

First of all, most of the trails were getting completely skied off by noon. The snow machines were blowing all day right in the middle of the mountain and the wind carried it onto half of the trails causing poor visibility for most of the day... they didnt seem to do much in terms of actually helping the snow situation. They only annoyed us and kept us off the front 2 trails from the top. Another trail from the top had ski racing and was closed. WHAT!?!?! So everyone from the Ursa six pack ended up on tamarak or one of the bears... not to mention people from the gondola and the other six.

They claim 70 trails... yeah right! I claim 15 trails.

Also, the lift lines were long, and they all dumped out at the same place... the top. So there was a constant flow of skiiers from dueling six packs and the gondola. Then, there were a bunch of lifts off to the side of the mountain that were closed half of the day so you had nowhere to escape. This traffic is what caused everything to ski off so fast. It reminded me of the Goat Run at Jay.

The trails were extremely tame. Those blacks should have been blues and the double blacks were not particularly memorable.

To top it all off, the food we got at lunch was moldy! That's a first! :angry:

There were a couple highlights. We found a couple of decent glades off of the bear trails. I would like to try more of the glades here, but we didn't get to it... serious potential! Also, we found ONE mogul trail just to side of the gondola line. It was decent, but we got to it at the end of the day (legs were shot). Plus it ended up as a series of large soft bumps followed by a lot of yellow pack. But hey, it's December so I can't complain. I just glad to find something challenging (I stink at moguls). There were certainly no steeps at this place.

We were still wishing that we went to MRV, Killington, Cannon, or even Sunday River. Too bad.

I don't think I will ever go back to Stratton. Maybe I will see some of you folks at Jay next weekend (though I wouldnt know an AZer from anyone else!). :smile: You guys should were name tags!

Great posts on this forum, by the way. I get schooled (er, educated) everyday.

 

[severine]

To top it all off, the food we got at lunch was moldy! That's a first! :angry:

...

I don't think I will ever go back to Stratton. Maybe I will see some of you folks at Jay next weekend (though I wouldnt know an AZer from anyone else!). :smile: You guys should were name tags!

Ew! Gross about your lunch!! uke:

Sorry you didn't have a great experience at Stratton. I've never been but it's on my list this year since I won a free lift ticket. I guess what you experienced is why its nickname is "Flatton", eh? I am jealous that you're going to Jay, though! Enjoy!!

All in all it was a fun day- light 'n fluffy without too much of crowd. I took some vid and will post later.

Where's that video? Is Tim really getting excited about skiing again?

 

[Greg]

The snow machines were blowing all day right in the middle of the mountain and the wind carried it onto half of the trails causing poor visibility for most of the day... they didnt seem to do much in terms of actually helping the snow situation. They only annoyed us and kept us off the front 2 trails from the top.

:roll: You're not going to get a lot of sympathy around here when you complain about snowmaking during the day. They should be making snow at every opportunity, especially this time of year. When you're making turns well into April, you'll be happy they did.

Fine, you don't like the mountain, but don't fault them for blowing snow. :blink: Unbelievable.

 

[severine]

:roll: You're not going to get a lot of sympathy around here when you complain about snowmaking during the day. They should be making snow at every opportunity, especially this time of year. When you're making turns well into April, you'll be happy they did.

Fine, you don't like the mountain, but don't fault them for blowing snow. :blink: Unbelievable.

Forgot about that part...and I agree with Greg. It's not uncommon at this time of year. Last Saturday I spent all my time at Mohawk skiing into the snow guns. Love the place all the same. Gotta get snow on the mountain somehow and I'd rather (any of them) take every opportunity to do it!

 

[MRGisevil]

Ew! Gross about your lunch!! uke:

Sorry you didn't have a great experience at Stratton. I've never been but it's on my list this year since I won a free lift ticket. I guess what you experienced is why its nickname is "Flatton", eh? I am jealous that you're going to Jay, though! Enjoy!!


Where's that video? Is Tim really getting excited about skiing again?

You know, I don't know if it was the new skis, or that trip to Mohawk w/Greg and Timmy getting to ski w/another guy and get his wind back, but he seems really excited about it! I can't get him to hush up about Hunter (he watched Bert's vid from last year and was like this: :blink: the whole time) and he's actually agreed to come out to Sundown on a Wednesday or two (which I thought was impossible). So yes- we are slowly but surely getting him back into the speed of things.

Vid is up. Long story short, I put it together last night and then had a girl moment because my form looks awful, so I didn't post. Woke up this morning, had a hard boiled egg and remembered it's the beginning of the season, I'm coming off of a back injury and most importantly remembered "be quiet, Randi, it's supposed to be about having fun and progressing- and besides you can always use this footage for a montage or mocumentary at the end of the season," and tossed it up on youtube:





Art- sorry you didn't have the same view as me on the mountain. I was a bit annoyed by the crowds in the lodges and how hard it was to find a seat, but I'm more accustomed to the Magic/MRG vibe so I'm always annoyed in the lodge at a big resort- but was also pretty happy that the conditions were so nice compared to this time last year and thrilled they were making snow!

Heh, heh, think it might be time to invest in some Alpinezone jackets or something

 

[amf]

....Vid is up. Long story short, I put it together last night and then had a girl moment because my form looks awful... :

What to you mean form looks awful? If that was you in the little red suit, I thought the snowplow technique was pretty good!!!!

 

[wa-loaf]

:lol: Billy Idol, love it!

 

[artooman]

:roll: You're not going to get a lot of sympathy around here when you complain about snowmaking during the day. They should be making snow at every opportunity, especially this time of year. When you're making turns well into April, you'll be happy they did.

Fine, you don't like the mountain, but don't fault them for blowing snow. :blink: Unbelievable.

I am not faulting them for blowing snow -- or rather it wasn't my intention to mean it that way. I guess didn't properly convey my point that the snow blowing just added to the annoyance about the trail layout and the crowds. It further limited the trails that we wanted to go down. There were a lot of lifts all converging on the top with a lot of people dumping out onto one place. And there was nowhere pleasant to go to avoid all that. (oh, and i mispoke about the lifts to the top... they have 2 quads, a sixpack, and a gondola)

Besides, can't they blow snow in the areas where the lifts are closed? Or can't they blow down stream of the prevailing winds? Also, they have all week and all night to blow snow. They can certainly move the weekend snowblowing to a more crowd friendly location.

IMHO, other mountains with these types of crowds seem to have multiple ski area (multiple peaks at Killington, Sunday River, Sugarbush, etc. or multiple faces like Mt Snow). You can move around to avoid crowds or snowmaking. Other places, like Cannon, rarely have crowds to begin with.

I am just trying to give my honest assessment and opinion.

MRGisevil - nice vid! you have nice smooth turns. i am glad that you are able to get out after your back injury and tear it up!

(are there really AZ jackets?)

 

[Greg]

Vid is up. Long story short, I put it together last night and then had a girl moment because my form looks awful, so I didn't post. Woke up this morning, had a hard boiled egg and remembered it's the beginning of the season, I'm coming off of a back injury and most importantly remembered "be quiet, Randi, it's supposed to be about having fun and progressing- and besides you can always use this footage for a montage or mocumentary at the end of the season," and tossed it up on youtube:

You look fine. Cool vid. Nice to see some footage from Stratton as I've never been there. Tim looks to be getting more comfortable on his new skis.

 

[severine]

What to you mean form looks awful? If that was you in the little red suit, I thought the snowplow technique was pretty good!!!!

:lol:

Randi - Great video! I like how you showed a good portion on the way up so we could say some of the lay of the land there. Lots of snow, looks like the trails you were taping on weren't crowded at all - NICE! Just remember - nobody is perfect! I've forbidden Brian from videotaping me ski because I'm terrified of what I'd see. But I think women in general are very hard on themselves. It's early season and you've had a prior injury so go easy on yourself. No need to impress these guys anyway.