Stratton Thread

[BodeMiller1]

I have low standards too. And I was telling the kids that all those natural sunbowl trails might not be 'powder' but ungroomed natural beats the fuck out of the frozen groomer conditions that are more the norm at Stratton and Southern VT in general.

Frozen Groomer, "Powder"? Skiing

 

[crank]

We wreon Ursa a bit before it shut down. It was running on the diesel engine so we figured something was up. Then is got shut down so we skied around a bit and then we ended up back on Ursa for our last few runs of the afternoon.

Really nice conditions and soft, low angle , natural snow bumps everywhere. We didn't ski any woods. First time out I wanted to be a bit cautious - happens as you age I guess. But we skied Spruce and Standard from Ursa and they were skiing great and the were empty. The whole place emptied out around 2.

 

[urungus]

Had a nice afternoon at an empty Stratton yesterday before the deluge. In the morning I diverted to Mount Snow because Stratton was reporting no upper mountain access with no estimated time of re-opening. But Mount Snow had problems of its own and I noticed Stratton had managed to open up the top, so bailed on Mount Snow and drove over to Stratton. Easy on a grey Tuesday when close-in parking is plentiful. Conditions had started to deteriorate a bit from the reports from previous days, but still pretty good, except for a large area of icy crust on skiers left midway down lower Slalom Glade, which I had the misfortune to wander into.

Between Mt Snow and Stratton:






Gondola closed all day:


No lines at Amex:


Chute or Big D ?




Upper Spruce. Other than Space Walk at Killington, is there an easier double black in New England ?

 

[urungus]

Run of the day Diamond in the Rough, between Polar Bear and Black Bear.

Entrance skiers right on Polar Bear looks inviting. No sign so not sure if this is the official way in ?

 

[Zand]

Damn, thats why I was kind of pissed Mt Snow never reopened North Face. Cascade was skiing a lot better than anything down lower so I had to figure the woods off Olympic were probably not too crusty.

Not sure why they threw in the towel on North Face after Bluebird reopened.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

for some reason diamonds and moonbeam arent marked, at least to my knoweldge.

that is the main entrance, the other entrance is a lift pole or two down the shootingstar line on skier's left.

if you keep going straight past the diamonds entrance and proceed straight into the woods where the trail elbows off to your right, thats the most popular entry to moonbeam

 

[urungus]

for some reason diamonds and moonbeam arent marked, at least to my knoweldge.

that is the main entrance, the other entrance is a lift pole or two down the shootingstar line on skier's left.

if you keep going straight past the diamonds entrance and proceed straight into the woods where the trail elbows off to your right, thats the most popular entry to moonbeam

Thanks. Moonbeam is off of Lower Wander, I think you mean Moon Dance (between Polar Bear and Grizzly Bear) ?

 

[KustyTheKlown]

ya, whatever the 'double black diamond' glade is

 

[NYDB]

best entrance to moondance is at top section of grizzly bear near the lookout,, before it gets 'steep'.

 

[BodeMiller1]

Looks buttery dark and deep.

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

Great day today. Couple inches overnight. Sun out in the morning and the wind never materialized. Blues generally pretty good snow, blacks icy. The gentle Ben shortcut in the Big Ben park was pretty good all day, the park area was half groomed and half natural.

The culvert work at the sunbowl got rid of the hill from the lodge to the lift.

Parked two cars from the building

 

[slatham]

Fun morning session yesterday with a few runs of varying depth of new snow (depending upon how late they groomed said trail) but “steeper” pitches on Polar and Spruce skied off quickly. They’ll need a man made refresh to bond to base before the holiday tourists arrive. Lots of race action - way more than normal SMS - May e a multi club training?

Parked at main base with early arrival, but glad to hear the Sun Bowl lift access hill is gone.

Looks like lots of terrain is ready (Grizzly) or has been started (Tamarack, Lower Slalom Glade). Great window of temps for all to have major terrain expansion just in time for holidays.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

was very pleased to find the re-grading of the sun-bowl lift load and the repositioning of the queue

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

Nice additional natural snow last two days. Main base saturdays, wow. Sunbowl empty and great snow. Took the condo shuttle bus first time today, weekends only but sweet.

 

[WoodCore]

Impressive snowmaking display going in the Sun Bowl today. Upper Kidder Brook, Free Fall, Bear Down and Upper Middlebrook all lit up top to bottom. Piles on Bear Down were 20-30 feet tall.

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

Really great two days. Fresh powder yesterday, poachfest today. No one cared about Christmas ropes anywhere, skied a lot of powder and now I’m feeling it. You could make fresh tracks on supertrail right to the last lift.


Got this kid off a ten year schneid yesterday, she hit some powder today.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Impressive snowmaking display going in the Sun Bowl today. Upper Kidder Brook, Free Fall, Bear Down and Upper Middlebrook all lit up top to bottom. Piles on Bear Down were 20-30 feet tall.

Any idea when are they opening all that kidderbrook stuff? Mostly want access to the 3 or 4 glades that way. Planning Stratton tomorrow…

 

[ColdRain&Snow]

Any idea when are they opening all that kidderbrook stuff? Mostly want access to the 3 or 4 glades that way. Planning Stratton tomorrow…

So bear down, middlebrook, kidderbrook still show closed. Guessing it didn’t matter. Here’s the end of kidderbrook yesterday.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

So bear down, middlebrook, kidderbrook still show closed. Guessing it didn’t matter. Here’s the end of kidderbrook yesterday.

View attachment 64013

I figured they were prepping the runout and I didn’t want to encounter active grooming so I didn’t poach over there

I skied the shit out of Stratton today tho. Got a little overzealous in west pilot tho and wound up too far out/low and had to slog back

Good tree skiing in soVT

 

[oldfartrider]

I figured they were prepping the runout and I didn’t want to encounter active grooming so I didn’t poach over there

I skied the shit out of Stratton today tho. Got a little overzealous in west pilot tho and wound up too far out/low and had to slog back

Good tree skiing in soVT




View attachment 64014

Holy crap that’s allot of runs