Stowe, VT 4/15/00

[GregB]

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 4/17/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>My friend Jeff and I hit Stowe Saturday for some fun in the sun. We were on the quad by 9:00 and the sun had already turned everything into a gluey sludge. The snow was slow and wax would have helped. First run we did Centerline which had been groomed I think but there were lots of small bumps and piles of gluey corn. Jeff stayed on groomed stuff and I headed down Hayride. Hayride had big sloppy joe bumps with a few lines down the middle were the traffic exposed the faster granular below. I poked into Three Friends glades for a few turns but it was still very sticky in there too. Next up was Bypass Chutes to Nosedive woods. Even up here the snow had that rotting sludge consistency. The Chutes were pretty rocky in the lower parts so I headed into the woods and down into the Nose Dive woods. I was all alone in there. Not a sole around. Suddenly I hear whistling and then singing and then a loud yee haa as a mono-skier floats through the trees like he's water skiing. It looked like lots of fun and much easier than two planks sinking into the sludge. Lower Nose Dive was groomed which gave me a chance to rest the legs a little cause this stuff is work. Goat and Starr had ropes so I headed to National and Liftline. Most of the bump riders were here pushing the sludge out of the troughs exposing a more manageable corny granular to ski on. A couple of these and it was back to the Bypass Chutes and Nose Dive woods. Only the quad and the triple were running and the line at the quad was building to a 5-10 minute wait. I met back up with Jeff and we did a few runs off of the triple. I did Hayride again and Gulch. By now my legs would not do anything I wanted them to and my face was red as a Lobster. It was time to stop. This was some of the toughest gluey rotten snow I've skied in long time but it was similar to lower mountain conditions at MRG's first melt down in February.