This was my first venture East during mid ski season, view of Mt. Mansfield from the access road.
I brought my SoCal weather with me. While it appeared to be only in the upper 30's while I was driving into Vermont from Montreal airport Saturday, it reached 52 degrees while skiing today, and I skied much of the afternoon in a T-shirt.
The locals said it was the warmest day of the season and were happy to see it after a consistently cold winter.
I warmed up on the upper Toll Road and then met local weatherman Jim Roemer for the next 3 hours of skiing.
The gondola groomed runs were of low intermediate pitch by western standards and thus sticky even at 10:30AM with the warm weather.
The Chin Clip bumps were somewhat mushy as well, and Jim also traversed me into the woods to far skier's left of Chin Clip.
Stowe's more famous runs on the Forerunner Quad were much better.
For mogul skiing the conditions were ideal from my perspective. Liftline and National I could ski pretty fluidly, and for cruising Nosedive and Hayride had enough pitch to overcome the spring conditions.
Goat was my personal introduction to the concept of "narrow New England trail", with good snow about one turn wide on skier's left and lots of ice and rock if you strayed too far right on the upper part.
Upper Starr was wider but also had a couple of ice bands to dodge.
Jim here is going to detour right into the woods about 1/3 of the way down.
The Starr Woods were very well sheltered and probably had the best snow of the day, though Jim fell here.
The Quad had ~10 minute lines most of the day. but I still skied until closing after Jim left for a total of 25K. This was a fun "go for it" day, but with the weather I suspected that I might be looking at the best conditions of my week on the first day. With the warm spring weather, the Ben & Jerry's tour was an obvious stop after skiing.
I brought my SoCal weather with me. While it appeared to be only in the upper 30's while I was driving into Vermont from Montreal airport Saturday, it reached 52 degrees while skiing today, and I skied much of the afternoon in a T-shirt.
The locals said it was the warmest day of the season and were happy to see it after a consistently cold winter.
I warmed up on the upper Toll Road and then met local weatherman Jim Roemer for the next 3 hours of skiing.
The gondola groomed runs were of low intermediate pitch by western standards and thus sticky even at 10:30AM with the warm weather.
The Chin Clip bumps were somewhat mushy as well, and Jim also traversed me into the woods to far skier's left of Chin Clip.
Stowe's more famous runs on the Forerunner Quad were much better.
For mogul skiing the conditions were ideal from my perspective. Liftline and National I could ski pretty fluidly, and for cruising Nosedive and Hayride had enough pitch to overcome the spring conditions.
Goat was my personal introduction to the concept of "narrow New England trail", with good snow about one turn wide on skier's left and lots of ice and rock if you strayed too far right on the upper part.
Upper Starr was wider but also had a couple of ice bands to dodge.
Jim here is going to detour right into the woods about 1/3 of the way down.
The Starr Woods were very well sheltered and probably had the best snow of the day, though Jim fell here.
The Quad had ~10 minute lines most of the day. but I still skied until closing after Jim left for a total of 25K. This was a fun "go for it" day, but with the weather I suspected that I might be looking at the best conditions of my week on the first day. With the warm spring weather, the Ben & Jerry's tour was an obvious stop after skiing.