Stratton, VT, 1/9/8

[billski]

So I went to the land of expensive ski duds today. Decided to base myself out of Sun Bowl so I wouldn't be subject to parking lot school busing desegregation policies.
There was clear evidence of freshies on the roadside trip up.

Sun Bowl Lodge:

It was a bluebird day. If you don't recall what a bluebird day is , this is one of my better pics. Notice the ice is still on the trees.

The winds were reasonable from mid mt. down, a bit drafty atop, which resulted in holds all over. For a while it was only URSA to the top.

Upper Kidderbrook sucked. There are no better words for it. Ball bearings on packed FGR:

In general, there was packed pow on the lower half of the mountain, fgr windswept on mid to summit. Upper mountain wasn't very enjoyable. Best trail for me was Upper Middlebrook (some trackable pp), and that ain't saying much. There were a LOT of people at the mt. early this am (lot 1 was full, lot 2 was more than 2/3 full) I don't mean to disparage groomers, but when you put that many people on the trails, even after grooming and 6" pow the day before, it scrapes off fast. Pray for more snow. In fact, stratton had many guns on the lower mountain

Honestly, you can't do much more than they did, considering that a week ago it was raining and icing.

There was a race on North American, the mid lodge was mobbed with racer slugs chillin', but eating nothing, no tables to be had, so I bagged it and had lunch at the sun lodge.

Me, being a powder snob, decided to eat some bark; my toothpick supply was running low at home, so off to the woods for me:

Pow was sweet. Skied like it was about 6-8" of light fluffy stuff. Spent most of my time here. The base is formed, saving for a few larger boulders, the woods is good.

I must be getting used to the temps. It was in the teens with a breeze. Others were complaining, I couldn't see the problem.

Now, since the ticket was free THANK YOU STRATTON! I really can't complain. The place was groomed solid and generally windswept. I spent a little time over at the Clocktower main mountain side. Everyone wanted to be on the gondi. I skied onto the lifts - American express, Ursla, shooting star and sunrise with no problem. So many people seemed to just be stuck in the lodge. All the trails, black and blue and green were groomed solid. As usual, blues generally were not too great as the day went on - they were so scraped off. If I was a blue skier, I'd be hitting those trails as early as I could. I got onto some greens by mistake and by runouts from above, and for the most part, the greens skied nicely, with lots of places to turn, lots of control.

I'd say the place is gonna be pretty beat by the end of the weekend.

I heard yesterday's skiing was the best on-trail, since it snowed all day and they didn't groom it during the day. Bummer.

Watched them working on the 1/2 pipe. The cats escorted some heavy construction equipment up to assist. I was waiting for the damn thing to topple:

Apples cost $1.85 and a cheesburger is $7.50. I think that's the highest price I've seen in the east.

I also couldn't decide if I saw more CT license plates or Spyder jackets. One couple must have had, between the two of them over $3000 worth of clothing on, not even counting their ski equipment. While Stowe seems to get a mix of types, you don't see any duct tape here.

I only have one beef with Stratton, that has to do with their lack of a snow phone. On the drive up, I like to kill some time by calling the mts. snow phones and see what everyone is reporting. Phone menu jail revealed no such option and no live humans to talk to before 8AM. Maybe this is to discourage day tripping?

If they could get another 12" that they could work into the FGR, the trails would be great.

At 4pm it was lightly snowing again. PFS!

 

[Vince]

I thought today was real good. I'm so sick of groomed the last few weeks. I skied mostly the trees. Stratton got enough snow to cover the ice. The level of rocks, stumps and sticks is still a bit high. But snow quality in the trees was great. Turn on a dime stuff.......Wind blown in the usual spots on the trails...............Sun Bowl area glades have a lot of downed trees and branches from the ice storm. If your tired of groomed the trees here will be good for the weekend

 

[amf]

Interesting... I was there on the 9th (free ticket, too!) & could not believe how bad conditions were in the morning. I was at Mt Snow on the 8th, for what was one of my best days ever. You could get first tracks in boot deep powder virtually any time during the day. At one point I took a run down Deer Run & did not see another skier until it intersected the lift from the group lodge.

Stratton groomed whatever snow fell on the 8th down to hardpack on the 9th. I have a bad knee (no cartilage), and REALLY feel the hard stuff. The only good thing was a gradual improvement as the day wore on and some powder started blowing in on the east side of the hill. The woods were good, although you had to keep an eye out for blowdown.

 

[madskier6]

Billski: Was this your first time to Stratton? I was under the impression you'd been there before but some aspects of your TR sounded like you were relaying your first impressions of Stratton. Just wondering.

Also, did they have the Snow Bowl lift running & the bump runs off that chair, including World Cup, open today? Those are some of my favorite runs at Stratton so I'm curious if they're open.

Whenever I go to Stratton, I usually also start-out from the Sun Bowl base area in order to avoid some of the crowds.

 

[billski]

Billski: Was this your first time to Stratton? I was under the impression you'd been there before but some aspects of your TR sounded like you were relaying your first impressions of Stratton. Just wondering.

Also, did they have the Snow Bowl lift running & the bump runs off that chair, including World Cup, open today? Those are some of my favorite runs at Stratton so I'm curious if they're open.

Whenever I go to Stratton, I usually also start-out from the Sun Bowl base area in order to avoid some of the crowds.

I've been to Stratton several times, but I like to write trail reports for the 1500 lurkers on this forum. I also like to report with a newbie in mind, it's a natural habit I have from the various lines of work I'm involved with.

Bumps? After last week's uglies? I didn't go as far over as snow bowl since I found some interesting stuff to entertain me on the other side adn wasn't impressed with what I saw everywhere else. I didn't see any bump runs anywhere on the mountain where I traveled, nor did I expect there to be. Flat, wide groomers are not my idea of a good time, but a report is a report, I don't need to go on about what I like (powder snob me.) I also can't speak for what happened today. They were still trying to get the halfpipe built. I expect that within the next couple of weeks the bumps will be good again, since most of the snow this past week seemed to make it into the woods, not the trails.

I also find that sometimes a naieve trail report flushes out a lurker or two with some real good information!

 

[bigbog]

...

Nice pics billski...!



STeveD