Bear Creek Club, VT 2/5/00

Jerm · Apr 18, 2000

(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 2/7/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.) My snowboarding southern friend Steve and I both bought VT Youth Corps passes this year and we figured this Saturday would be as good as any to use our one voucher to Bear Creek. We figured most of the other mountains in South-Central VT would be tracked out by now, and given the fact that Bear Creek is only open weekends it would be a sure fire bet for some powder turns. Our first clue that something strange was afoot came when we pulled into the parking lot at 9:30 on a high-season Saturday and saw one, count-em ONE car. The main clubhouse isn't finished yet so I ducked into a yurt they had set up at the bottom of the lift. A couple of people in the dimly lit structure stared back at me. I asked where one could find tickets. They pointed us to a small office attached to the town's one gas station. A small sign said "Bear Creek".. we went in. Inside, a friendly young lady filled us in on the status of the place, handed us some fancy propaganda, and sent us on our way. To be a member it costs $6000 per person (one time fee) and $9000 per couple plus some yearly dues. According to a photocopied SKIING article she handed us, this was a steal -- the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, MT requires a $250,000 deposit plus proof of at least a $3 million net worth in order to keep the riff raff out. Steve and I said we'd get back to them once our internet IPOs were all settled and done with. Until Bear Creek meets their minimum membership requirement, tickets are on sale to the public at $50/day and are limited to less than 450 skiers/day. From what we saw, they wont be turning people away anytime soon. As I waited by the lift for Steve, the liftie radioed one of the owners that a couple of newcomers were here. We had just gotten there and were already getting the grand treatment. He was obviously very proud of his little ski area, and said that he grew up skiing the old Roundtop, Okemo, and Killington. His vision for the place basically revolved around the idea that people are fed up with the crowded complexity of the big resorts and want a place where crowds are guaranteed to be nonexistent. Their website at http://www.bearcreekclub.com has all the details. OK, now the mountain. The ski area at present encompasses all the original Roundtop trails with a little extra width added in a few places. It has about 1200 vertical feet below a summit in the low 2000's. The one running chair is a rebuilt double which is all new except for the towers (erector set towers -- cool). A shorter double to skiers left is due to be rebuilt next and two more up and to skiers right are in the master plan. If Saturday was any indication, the additional chair will not be needed to keep liftlines down. My first run was down Coolidge, a trail to skiers right of the liftline. It was fun, lots of little rolls and weird humps left but all perfectly groomed. I think they went a little nuts with the groomer, very little was left untouched and I think the mountain would ski much bigger if they would do this. Nothing on the hill really makes it up to black diamond pitch, even by Okemo standards.. which is unfortunate. The terrain in their future plans does run through some ledge bands though so there could be some short pitches to liven things up. We ended up spending most of our time on a little roped off shot called "Glade". Since we were sharing the mountain with about 10 other people who probably could care less about skiing untracked powder, we were able to make lap after lap on this without crossing anyone's tracks but our own. We felt like royalty. Unshaven, Miller High Life swilling, dumpster diving, saltine and condiment eating Royalty. In the afternoon I did what I could to sample some of the area's tree skiing. There isn't anything official, but I found an old jeep road off to skier's right that had enough pitch to entertain and where it got flat you could cut the hairpins. This is the future site of one of the proposed "expert" trails. Unless they make it very narrow (not likely, if they cut it like the others) this trail will be far from expert. If it is cut right though, it could be interesting. As we sat on the back of his Nova, tossing back cold Miller's, Steve summed it up best when he said "yeah, that Bear Creek. Those guys are allllright by me" (add Kentucky drawl). When they start getting exclusive maybe I'll start singing a different tune, but for now any place where you can ski all day and barely see another soul (12 people, total, on a high season Saturday) is all right by me too. His Royal Highness for a day, King Jerm

Bear Creek Club, VT 2/5/00

Jerm

New member