<I>(Note from the Administrator: This report was originally posted on 3/20/00. Due to our move to new servers, the date and time attributed to this post is incorrect.)</I> <BR> <BR>Thanks to the Vermont Youth Corps, I was able to sample this little gem on Sunday. I am happy to grant it the Malczyk seal of approval. Nothing Mc about it. Just walking into the lodge (or driving into the muddy hayfield parking lot) you get the sense that this place was built for the love of skiing, not the almighty dollar. <BR> <BR>It was J4 state championships (I think) so most of the main run, the Face, was occupied by little speed demons and their spectators. The course was right next to the lift, so you had something to watch on every ride up. <BR> <BR>My first run took me off the back into "Gully" which is about as close to open bowl skiing as you can get in Vermont. It's basically a huge concave cow pasture that doubles as a ski run in the winter. It was really thin but the field had been so picked through by the farmers that it was hard to find a rock. The barbed wire fence across the top was really cool too. <BR> <BR>Throughout the rest of the day I sampled some of their steeper offerings, the steepest of which was "Backscratcher" which I measured with my poles to be just shy of 40 degrees on skiers left, albeit only for about 50 feet. The front six expert runs are legit by VT standards, and blow away anything at most Southern VT McMountains. There was only about 4-7 inches of snow on top of grass but everything was open, making navigation on the steeper stuff extra interesting. <BR> <BR>Somewhere in there I carefully stepped over the barbed wire and skied an untracked pasture off the backside, then linked some snowmobile trails and mellow woods together to get back to the Easy Mile. Making tracks across a sunny and warm cow pasture is probably about as Vermont as it gets. The snow in the shady woods on the north side of the hill had enough snow to keep from bumping into anything unpleasant, but another foot or two were needed to justify going back in. I stuck to the trails the rest of the day, and called it quits when my curiosity started to have a noticable effect on the bottom of my skis. <BR> <BR>If anyone is looking for cheap and steep ($28 all day, $20 half), this is definitely a good place to head on a powder day or crowded saturday. The trees are big and mature, and some of the meadows feel like a miniature version of western terrain. It's a special place, check it out.
Suicide Six, VT 3/19/00
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