Sugarbush, VT 2/19-21/00

Michael · Apr 18, 2000

(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 2/23/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.) After an energy sucking 8 hour drive from NYC, I arrived in Lower Granville with Rich Neuman at 3 AM. I-91 was littered with cars on and off the road and was generally not a pleasant place to be. Troy Thibeault and about 12" of fluff awaited us at the house, and it wa starting to snow again after seeing nary a flake all the way up from the City. We awoke slowly and groggily around 7:30 to find that another 2-3" had fallen overnight and we were on the Valley House double by 8:30. Below us unfolded a blazingly white winter wonderland buried in unadulterated pow. The Mall had hosted about 5 skiers by this point, but was still chock full of powder and relatively untracked lines. The three of us headed down the top 20% with boot, knee, and face shots abounding - especially when we hit the buried moguls. What a rush!! I then ducked into the woods b/w Mall and Steins to find it completely untracked. What followed was 10 minutes of alternate nirvana in waist and chest deep pow, intermingled with herb, spore touron levels of flailing. It was my first run of the day after all. Troy eneded up cutting over to Steins as trees aren't his bag, baby. When I finally emerged at the double agian, Rich was nowhere to be found and Troy and I headed over to Super Bravo. Next run was on Downspout to the Castlerock chair where we had agreed to go next. By this time, I was getting pretty ticked off - my goggles simply wouldn't stay clear. I had biffed in the woods on my first run and they were both coated in snow and reacting to my overheated head. @%^%^%*&&(**&( I hate this damn set up!!!! Got to get me some prescription goggles or something. The line at the Rock was about 10 minutes and we made it to thetop of Middle Earth before long. I was pretty excited as Castlerock had never ben open in my previous trips to the Bush. ME was pretty empty, but featured 1500 verts of scrumpcious powder bumps that you could pinball off of with no problems. After the first 100 yards or so, my frustration with my goggles caused me to rip off my glasses and stow them away for the rest of the day. As it turns out, on a powder day when I'm not doing Mach 3 cruising, it works pretty well. I'm not so blind after all. We met up with Rich at the bottom and headed up again to tackle Rumble. This to had seen its share of skiers, but was still powdery all around. Rumble was a real treat - narrow, gnarly, steep, twisting - pure New England. As we approached the bottom, we could see the lines at the chair building even further - 20-30 minutes worth. Troy had some other problems and was calling it a day, so Rich and I raced off to Super Bravo with a plan to hit the Wedding Trails. First we had to get to Heaven's Gate though, and Downspout was not the place we wanted to be. We took Domino to Domino Woods (?) on skiers' right. This glade held lots of fresh tracks of the boot deep variety. At the top of the triple, we slogged it over to the Church. Didn't realize what a painfully long hike that was. The snow was so deep, that the skis on my shoulder kept getting snagged on the branches. Not that I'm complaining though, it's not every day you can ski the upper reaches of Lincoln and Nancy Hanks peak w/o a hint of wind. The run started off with another cliff jump - about 10 feet. I of course stank up the joint and did my patented double release - not unlike that day at Orford with Jerm and Mapadu. The rest of the run was crowded up top, but with great pow in the glades below. Glades which seemed to last forever until we finally reached Lower Paradise. It was now time for lunch and some pole repair (avoid the yelloow and black Kerma poles this year at all costs - the baskets are made of paper mache or something). Skiing glades in deep powder w/o a pole basket leaves something to be desired. After a quick bite (oh the memories of Mrs. Neuman's garlic laced roast beef still dance in my head) and a stop at the demo shop, we were back on the Valley House double. This time we headed for Revers Travers and the woods to skiers left of Steins Run. We picked a line with tracks - but this being our virgin descent, we got suckered into trees that were either not thinned at all, or were worked on by someone with a really sick sense of humor. Fortunately, the bottom 200 yards made all the flailing worth it. Waist deep untracked pow - yummy. We took Super Bravo again to Domino. This time we ducked into the woods on skier's left. This may be Lew's line or something. I don't know. Regardless, we found the hardwoods to be well spaced, and the tracks to fairly rare. I was cruising along at Mach speed when I happened across a branch lying about 4" over the surface of the snow. I tried to raise my skis over it, but to no avail. Both shins hit the branch dead on and I immediately double released into a full gainer. I flew through the air and landed head first in a pile of fluff. It must have been poetry to watch. Hiked up about 25 feet and found my skis waiting for me patiently lodged underneath the branch. If I wasn't in such a hurry to find untracked elsewhere, I might have done it again just for the fun of it. The next run was Paradise Woods off Heaven's Gate (that's what Rich called it - basically the first exit off the traverse to the other goods in that area). I thought this was just as good as our first run in the area, though perhaps a bit more tracked out. I'm not sure if the extra 10 minute walk is worth it unless you are getting first tracks. Though Heaven's Gate was strangely deserted at this point (~1:00 PM), we decided to head over to Castlerock again. Big mistake. The lines there hadn't abated one bit. I was not going to let some sort of perverted nostalgia keep me from accessing the goods today, so we headed for Gate House. We tried to find Deeper Sleeper, but go lost and just ended up hitting some random off map woods in the Sleeper region. It was deep, untracked, and nicely spaced, but didn't hold enough pitch on a consistent basis. We then decided to hit skier's right of Hot Shot/Waterfall/Hot Shot. From the lift it looked really well spaced, consistently pitched, and REALLY untracked. It turned out to be all of that and more. Rich and I had that forest to ourselves fo the entire run. Boot deep, knee deep, and even waist deep pow was the flavor of these glades. The great part IMHO was that these trees consisted of two or three distinct sections, each separated by a catwalk to/from the trails to either side. You could play with the delightful double fall line and pop out to the trail on the left, but then jump right back in the middle on the next catwalk. Rich called it quits after one run - he drove all the way after all. I couldn't tear myself away and enjoyed 3 more hero runs in those trees, each one faster and more aggressive than the last. Twigs were snapping, branches yielding, and undergrowth submitting to my steamroller pace. What a great place to learn the art of glade skiing. After those runs, I asked the liftie what time it was - 3:30 maybe? Perhaps 3:45? Try 1:55. Not even 2:00 and I was completely sh%tcanned already. I took one more run off Super Bravo, but it wasn't the same, it all caught up to me. I lollygagged the rest of the way down the mountain with burning quads and a heavy heart. The next two days brought only pain, and then some more pain. I guess I ain't as young as I used to be or something. The next two days found me still nursing a bruised wrist (guess not all those branches yielded), sore shins, trashed quads, and memories of pow too vivid to compete with. What a day at the Bush. Definitely a Top 10 all time.

Sugarbush, VT 2/19-21/00

Michael

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