Despite the rather colorful weather forecasts looming for our trip last week into the weekend, my wife and I decided to go through with it (for one thing we couldn't get out of deposits and my hotel stays were already covered by Marriott points I would have lost).
Plan was simple, stay 2 days in Williston, 1 day in Stowe, and 2 more days in Williston. Stays were all motivated by package deals and/or use of hotel reward points (which have been racking up fast and furious with travel for work lately). The original hope was to ski a day a piece at Mad River Glen, Smuggler's Notch, Stowe, Sugarbush, and Jay Peak. The only place we had been previously of those 5 areas was Stowe.
Trip immediately started out bad Tuesday night when we decided to take Route 8 coming out of New York to Ticonderoga (cuts about 35 miles off of taking I88 from here in Ithaca) to cross the bridge into Vermont. Earlier bad weather was supposed to be cleared out, but we found moderate to heavy rain throughout the southern Adirondack preserve with temperatures around 28 degrees. What followed was about 60 miles of the most white knuckle driving I have ever done in my life until the temperature got back around freezing past Ticonderoga.
Got in really late to Williston that night, and then had a fire alarm at our hotel that morning which made what was going to be a late start even later. With the impending freeze up and expected wind conditions for the afternoon, we decided to can skiing that day and be tourists in Burlington, which was probably the right choice since a lot of mountains ended up nearly closed down by the end of the day. This was ugly #1.
Next day, woke up a little late again, but got up to Smuggler's Notch by about 9:30 AM. Only 33 trails (of about 76 I think) were open. Conditions were a mix of frozen and loose granular. It was bright and sunny, but windy and quite cold with temperatures only around 20 at the base and presumably in the low teens/high single digits up top. We only could stomach the ride up to the top of Madonna once, a decision that was aided by the fact that really only one route was open from the top. We spent most of the day exploring Sterling which was maybe 60 to 70% open. Almost no advanced terrain was open and we got pretty bored by about 2:30 PM and called it a day. Overall, I was pretty happy that we skied on vouchers this day since my experience did not live up to my expectations at all. Definitely some hairball terrain exists here, like the double black under the Madonna life, but coverage was no where near what be needed to open trails like that up. With the next round of impending freeze/thaw doom hitting Vermont, I don't picture Smugg's skiing very well until (if?) they pick up some big storms on the tail end of winter. Honestly, I didn't really see the appeal of this place. This was the bad.
Friday we spent the day at Stowe and skied in the storm. Probably half of their advanced/expert terrain was open when we got there, but we wanted nothing to do with trees since we expected it to be pretty bullet proof. Weather started out with about 2 inches of snow, and then it changed over to heavy sleet which continued in town until well after we wrapped up skiing a bit past 3 PM. Surface conditions got better as the day went on with a sandy mix of snow and sleet to push around on quite a few of the trails. Dilemma for us was between using carving skis (which you really needed for the icey areas), versus our twin tips which were much better for pushing around the crud. Chinclip off the Gondola was quite a bit of fun later in the day, but Liftline's headwall was bullet proof (which I did a nice hero slide down not having the edges of my twins sharp enough). Lifts didn't go down due to wind, but were literally crawling (the frontrunner quad kept stalling and finally was shut down early at 3 PM). Overall though we had a pretty good day. Have to love those $84 weekend lift tickets, I love inflation.
Saturday was the real screw up of the trip. Despite forecast wind conditions, we decided to go to Jay Peak assuming that being further north, they probably got more snow and less ice from the storm. We could have gone somewhere further south and probably had a good day, but I got tunnel vision and really wanted to get a day in at Jay since I figured this may be my last chance for a long time. We got to the turn off for Route 242 and I was thinking, wow this weather really isn't that bad, there's barely any wind. Then we started climbing. First we started encountering all the front wheel drive cars stuck on the hill (must have gone past 4 or 5). Then we started encountering the wind. By the time we got to the base lodge, you could barely see more than 50 feet in front of your face. Only 5 lifts and 10 trails were open when we got there around 10 AM, so we decided to wait it out and see if things improved figuring we could salvage afternoon tickets. We waited around an hour and just gave up. I figured it'd be better to waste $30 on gas, then waste $130 on gas and skiing. We left, encountering a new group of cars stuck on Route 242 (is this always a problem?). This was the ugly #2.
Sunday was the saving grace. We headed to Sugarbush which was appealing since it's southerly location promised to be a bit easier to get back to New York from. They had reported 8 inches of stuff on Saturday from the storm and we anticipated a lot of the bullet proof garbage from the freeze up to be hidden away. Spent a lot of time skiing on Mount Ellen. Exterminator had fantastic coverage with big "sandy" bumps to hit and very little glare ice. We also went through "Sorta Tough Trees" which was a nice lower angle glade. Typical post snow natural mogul run with trees and coverage was kind of sketchy, but was still a decent run for my wife who had not really picked up the drive to tree ski yet. We came back over to the main ski area for the afternoon and did a run a piece off of each of the upper mountain lifts. Things definitely were more scraped off by the end of the day, but skied pretty well up until 3:15 when we headed in. This was definitely (and thankfully) a good day.
Overall observations:
Until some consistent snow fall and colder weather sets up in northern VT, I don't think conditions will be optimal. There may be days which are pretty good, especially when a few inches of fresh snow are out there, but a lot of terrain really could use a good foot or two of coverage at this point to ski well again.
Do not ever go to Jay Peak with forecast wind. Jesus christ what a mistake, I should have known better.
It will be nice to be able to drive to Telluride from Phoenix next year in almost the same amount of time it takes me to drive to northern Vermont right now
.
Sorry for the length, any of you who actually read this, cheers!
Pathetically just ski days 2, 3, and 4 for me this season and the weather in New York right now doesn't look like it is going to help that one bit.
-Craig
Plan was simple, stay 2 days in Williston, 1 day in Stowe, and 2 more days in Williston. Stays were all motivated by package deals and/or use of hotel reward points (which have been racking up fast and furious with travel for work lately). The original hope was to ski a day a piece at Mad River Glen, Smuggler's Notch, Stowe, Sugarbush, and Jay Peak. The only place we had been previously of those 5 areas was Stowe.
Trip immediately started out bad Tuesday night when we decided to take Route 8 coming out of New York to Ticonderoga (cuts about 35 miles off of taking I88 from here in Ithaca) to cross the bridge into Vermont. Earlier bad weather was supposed to be cleared out, but we found moderate to heavy rain throughout the southern Adirondack preserve with temperatures around 28 degrees. What followed was about 60 miles of the most white knuckle driving I have ever done in my life until the temperature got back around freezing past Ticonderoga.
Got in really late to Williston that night, and then had a fire alarm at our hotel that morning which made what was going to be a late start even later. With the impending freeze up and expected wind conditions for the afternoon, we decided to can skiing that day and be tourists in Burlington, which was probably the right choice since a lot of mountains ended up nearly closed down by the end of the day. This was ugly #1.
Next day, woke up a little late again, but got up to Smuggler's Notch by about 9:30 AM. Only 33 trails (of about 76 I think) were open. Conditions were a mix of frozen and loose granular. It was bright and sunny, but windy and quite cold with temperatures only around 20 at the base and presumably in the low teens/high single digits up top. We only could stomach the ride up to the top of Madonna once, a decision that was aided by the fact that really only one route was open from the top. We spent most of the day exploring Sterling which was maybe 60 to 70% open. Almost no advanced terrain was open and we got pretty bored by about 2:30 PM and called it a day. Overall, I was pretty happy that we skied on vouchers this day since my experience did not live up to my expectations at all. Definitely some hairball terrain exists here, like the double black under the Madonna life, but coverage was no where near what be needed to open trails like that up. With the next round of impending freeze/thaw doom hitting Vermont, I don't picture Smugg's skiing very well until (if?) they pick up some big storms on the tail end of winter. Honestly, I didn't really see the appeal of this place. This was the bad.
Friday we spent the day at Stowe and skied in the storm. Probably half of their advanced/expert terrain was open when we got there, but we wanted nothing to do with trees since we expected it to be pretty bullet proof. Weather started out with about 2 inches of snow, and then it changed over to heavy sleet which continued in town until well after we wrapped up skiing a bit past 3 PM. Surface conditions got better as the day went on with a sandy mix of snow and sleet to push around on quite a few of the trails. Dilemma for us was between using carving skis (which you really needed for the icey areas), versus our twin tips which were much better for pushing around the crud. Chinclip off the Gondola was quite a bit of fun later in the day, but Liftline's headwall was bullet proof (which I did a nice hero slide down not having the edges of my twins sharp enough). Lifts didn't go down due to wind, but were literally crawling (the frontrunner quad kept stalling and finally was shut down early at 3 PM). Overall though we had a pretty good day. Have to love those $84 weekend lift tickets, I love inflation.
Saturday was the real screw up of the trip. Despite forecast wind conditions, we decided to go to Jay Peak assuming that being further north, they probably got more snow and less ice from the storm. We could have gone somewhere further south and probably had a good day, but I got tunnel vision and really wanted to get a day in at Jay since I figured this may be my last chance for a long time. We got to the turn off for Route 242 and I was thinking, wow this weather really isn't that bad, there's barely any wind. Then we started climbing. First we started encountering all the front wheel drive cars stuck on the hill (must have gone past 4 or 5). Then we started encountering the wind. By the time we got to the base lodge, you could barely see more than 50 feet in front of your face. Only 5 lifts and 10 trails were open when we got there around 10 AM, so we decided to wait it out and see if things improved figuring we could salvage afternoon tickets. We waited around an hour and just gave up. I figured it'd be better to waste $30 on gas, then waste $130 on gas and skiing. We left, encountering a new group of cars stuck on Route 242 (is this always a problem?). This was the ugly #2.
Sunday was the saving grace. We headed to Sugarbush which was appealing since it's southerly location promised to be a bit easier to get back to New York from. They had reported 8 inches of stuff on Saturday from the storm and we anticipated a lot of the bullet proof garbage from the freeze up to be hidden away. Spent a lot of time skiing on Mount Ellen. Exterminator had fantastic coverage with big "sandy" bumps to hit and very little glare ice. We also went through "Sorta Tough Trees" which was a nice lower angle glade. Typical post snow natural mogul run with trees and coverage was kind of sketchy, but was still a decent run for my wife who had not really picked up the drive to tree ski yet. We came back over to the main ski area for the afternoon and did a run a piece off of each of the upper mountain lifts. Things definitely were more scraped off by the end of the day, but skied pretty well up until 3:15 when we headed in. This was definitely (and thankfully) a good day.
Overall observations:
Until some consistent snow fall and colder weather sets up in northern VT, I don't think conditions will be optimal. There may be days which are pretty good, especially when a few inches of fresh snow are out there, but a lot of terrain really could use a good foot or two of coverage at this point to ski well again.
Do not ever go to Jay Peak with forecast wind. Jesus christ what a mistake, I should have known better.
It will be nice to be able to drive to Telluride from Phoenix next year in almost the same amount of time it takes me to drive to northern Vermont right now
.Sorry for the length, any of you who actually read this, cheers!
Pathetically just ski days 2, 3, and 4 for me this season and the weather in New York right now doesn't look like it is going to help that one bit.
-Craig
