Sugarbush, VT 12/24-25/99 / Okemo, VT 12/26/99

[Michael]

<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 12/28/99. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>I stayed at a friend's place in Lower Granville this weekend to see if I could get in some real VT skiing. I was not dissapointed. Much love, props, kudos, and whatever else goes out to the SB mountain ops folks. The conditions on both days were absolutely brilliant. While the air was a tetch chilly, the snow was fabulous. We ranged all over the mountain over the two days. Spent about 50% of time on the Valley House and Sugar Bravo chairs, and the other half in the sun on Gate House and North Lynx. Murphy's Glades, Downspout, Upper Organgrinder, Sleeper Chute, Hot Shot, Birch Run, and Upper Jester were in great shape and had wonderfully carvable packed powder that I could set a sharp edge on and drag my hand along the snow with my X-Screams. Particularly memorable were several high speed runs on Jester switching from leg to leg on those S-turns - I freakin love that !!! <BR> <BR>They were blowing snow like crazy (or had been recently) on Spring Fling, Lower Snowball, and especially lower Grinder. The latter trail was in unbelievable shape - with the air as cold and dry as it was, the man made was soft and powdery and was the definition of hero snow. Huge snow making whales developed allowing for big air with few consequences. Another bonus was that the snow didn't stick to my goggles - though at 3 degrees and in the shade, that stuff did sting a bit. <BR> <BR>Sunrise and Waterfall were allowed to bump up and with their southerly aspect provided nice, soft, ego bumps both days. Castelrock was closed those two days but they did open several other trails with only natural snow like Spillsville, Lower Ripcord, Domino Chutes (first tracks, such as they were), Lower Domino, <BR>and Morningstar. They were all scratchy and, for the most part, I opted away from those choices. <BR> <BR>Took a quick jaunt over to Mt. Ellen which allowed me to simulateously freeze my butt off whilst lamenting the fact that black bears find the Slide Brook Beech Trees to be a particularly yummy treat - man that looks like sweet terrain! Skied Looking Good to Cliffs - all was firm packed powder, slightly harder and <BR>scratchier than what was available at Lincoln Peak. I was frezing my rear off by this time so we only took that one run and fled to the relative warmth of North Lynx. <BR> <BR>Okemo on Sunday was a different story. With twice the crowds, half the terrain, and 50% more lift capacity - Okemo's trails were in a LOT rougher shape than the Bush. Many trails were scraped to ice by the time we got there about at 10:30. <BR> <BR>It was remarkable to se how much smaller and flatter Okemo seemed in comparison to Sugarbush - I had never noticed it before. I truly captured the difference between Northern VT and Southern VT IMHO. Anyway, though there were a lot of options at Okemo, none of them were particularly enticing. What wasn't scraped clear was either flat, straight, or shouldn't have been opened at all (the liftline trail under the Sachem Quad comes to mind - what a disaster). The mountain was blowing snow like crazy and I imagine that with this continued cold weather, Okemo will pretty much be at max capacity by the end of the week. <BR> <BR>To sum up, congrats to SB on a job VERY well done. It will be a long time before I return to Okemo.