Sugarbush, VT 3/17/00

Jerm · Apr 18, 2000

(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 3/17/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.) I had numerous errands to run before skiing today (including a visit to THE sketchiest state inspection station in VT -- in a yellow trailer atthe bottom of the access road at South, if you have a floppy vehicle, go there). With an 11am start, I figured I'd have to scrap around in the woods to find any untracked. I was on brand spankin new skis though and figured a day on-piste wouldnt be so bad.. I should have known better than to make such assumptions. Conditions on the trails were alright, 6" of pushed around powder with old manmade ice underneath. Nothing to get your feathers ruffled over. First run I started down Paradise, hoping to avoid the rocks and find some morsels off to the left. For some silly reason I balked and ducked onto the LT. As I came to a stop at the first flat I started wondering.. I wonder how much snow castlerock lost last week? I wonder if I'll be able to tell the powder on snow from the powder on bare rock? I told myself over and over -- Jeremy, these are new skis. It would be a sin to abuse them.. I decided that it wasnt worth the risk. But then one tiny thought intruded and I remembered.. these skis were free 15 minutes of poling, hiking, and bobsled-style skiing later I was at the C-rock warming hut, it was snowing lightly, absolute quiet.. and only 3 tracks heading down Castlerock run. Weeks of closure had erase all the bumps, all I saw was a smooth unbroken sea of white. Visions of CanAM in December flashed through my head -- could this be it? Am I in that perfect place again? I pushed off. Any lingering doubts melted away as I made huge banked turns down the trail. The cover was wall-to-wall. The snow got progressively heavier the deeper you went. It was enough so that it sheilded you from the crunch in all but the sharpest turns. Perfect. My skis wanted to run and I let them, oh man did I let them run.. never gone so fast on teles before.. what a blast! That diving inside ski I've gotten so used to never showed up, these things just kept on truckin' .... just drop the knee and zoooom, like clockwork. It was so good I went back twice today. Middle Earth was nearly as sweet, with a few remnant bumplets remining beneath the powder to liven things up. Still no rocks to speak of. Liftline had some of the best lines -- I got first on one of the bypass chutes in the upper section, and all the tracks from earlier had filled in on the lower parts. There's something spooky about skiing under a closed lift, totally alone, in snow like this. At one stop I stared across at the hordes scraping down Steins and thought .. if they only knew what they were missing. Somewhere in there I sampled some goods I remembered from my Big Pass days. Mostly stuff off Sugar Bravo. One is so close to a groomed trail and so open that you can race people that are on-piste. A thin band of brush seperated me from the trail. I watched dozens of people fly by without even looking. There were absolutely NO tracks in there. From my perspective it was hard to beleive that so many people could pass right next to such a perfect powder stash and not so much as peek in. Listening to them complain about conditions in the lodge really capped it all off. Clue me in, I dont get it. Fools! There is powder out there GO SKI IT! more evil empire tomorrow, Kmart ..or will I cave to that 10" at Suicide Six

Sugarbush, VT 3/17/00

Jerm

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