5 Days in Northern VT - Jan 30 to Feb 3 - Good, Bad & Ug

[jamesdeluxe]

And James...shouldn't it be a FEW more days before you go gettin all cranky? After all you just came from the promised land.

That was a joke. There's nothing that annoys me more than people getting all pissy about conditions. You are where you are... make the best of it.

 

[cweinman]

Admin speaks the truth. Ben Solish was on MIT's race team for 4 years, then another year as assistant coach. He doesn't miss eastern skiing.

A valiant effort from cweinman. But Sharon lives in the same neck of the woods and seems to have strategized a good mix of eastern and western trips to get quite a bit of high quality skiing every season.

Tony,

Very true and for the record (incase any of this was directed towards me), I wasn't bitching about my trip.

Our scrapped day at Jay Peak Saturday was my own damn fault. We could have gone to Sugarbush, Smuggs, MRG, or Stowe and probably had a pretty good day, I just picked the wrong area to try for since I had blinders on about wanting to check the place out. Wednesday when we got up there was really the only impossible day to deal with, and that was just bad luck.

We honestly had a lot of fun during the trip, especially during the days at Stowe and Sugarbush. Smugg's left a bit to be desired, but that was primarily due to limited terrain being open. I feel like they roped more off there than they really had to since they didn't want anything that was both icey AND steep open (when we would have been fine skiing this).

Sharon definitely has me beat on all of this in a big way also being in Ithaca, but I think she has a lot more flexibility and probably some more cash to throw at the pursuit than I do right now. Graduate student salaries don't exactly give you much disposable income to throw at what is a very expensive hobby, especially once you factor in lodging and transportation needs for bigger trips. Part of this is my own fault now also being stuck in a lease with a stupid car (14 mpg at $3.30 a gallon around here doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy about doing the 700 mile round trip to Jay Peak). Moral of story, high mpg = good for eastern skiing!

2 years ago when I had a Greek Peak season pass and some more time and flexibility to throw at skiing, I think I actually got in 23 or 24 days out. I had to do a lot of trolling for specials like $15 days at Belleayre and what not to pull that off, plus having people to drag with me to split gas helped a lot. This season life just won't cooperate to say the least, and I'll be surprised if I end up breaking 10 days out when it's all said and done.

Once I am in Phoenix next year, I'll be surprised if I get in more than 10 or 15 days in an average year and I will miss having small ski areas less than an hour drive from home. Nevertheless, the quality of my days out will probably be a lot higher overall, as the small areas around here don't really do it for me unless their conditions are really good. Hell, you can get a lift ticket to Mad River Glen for $2 less than Greek Peak. What the hell is up with that?

Okay, I'm done with this stage of my rant .