A
Anonymous
Guest
Sunday. Day of rest. <BR> <BR>We rested up with a short day at Middlebury Snow Bowl. All 1000 vertical feet of it. <BR> <BR>This was my second visit, the first having been an awesome powder day about a year ago. Cute little place. Skis a little different on a normal day than on a powder pig oinkfest, but enjoyable nonetheless. Using trail character as a metric, this is a true ski area. <BR> <BR>Snow was OK. New snow didn't seem as deep as it was at MRG Friday or even in my driveway, and there was a noticeable crust just under the surface. Most of the trails had been groomed and could be scratchy in some places, but there were a few ungroomed delights (Liftline under the Falls chair, La Force, Ross Glades, baby glades near the baby lift) and many of the edges yield partially untracked snow. <BR> <BR>As befitting a ski area operated by a school, this is a ski area with lots of rules -- especially in the high school like cafeteria: extra cups 10 cents; no refills; no grilled cheese on Sundays; no bags on the floor; only ski marked and patrolled runs. This last rule was violated a couple of times: most significantly, when I found a little side track of untracked off of La Force: I was already 1/3 of the way down when we were caught by a ski patroller: once again, I was found skiing something called "Not a <BR>Trail." My wife, ever the goodie two shoes, stopped and walked back: mostly to see if she knew the patroller: many ski patrol members at MSB are Middlebury Students -- perhaps he or she was one of her students and could be bribed. Me, I knew I was a wanted man, so I skied like lightning to avoid capture. <BR> <BR>Even though the vertical is small and the trails short, the place skied bigger as the day wore on and we found more and more small treats. Last run down Proctor seemed truly Mansfield like. And <BR>despite it's size, the views of the Green Mountain National Forest -- in particular the summit of Bread Loaf Mountain, were Big Mountain <BR>spectacular.