Middlebury College Snow Bowl 3-8-15

On my way up now for the first time.  Will post about it throughout the day.

Wow this place is dead for a Sunday.  As of 10 am seen maybe 10 people on the lifts and mtn. More people in the lodge but, a far cry from the crowd that will be at Greek today.

So far this place has many different faces, twisty trails, short stretches of very steep and rock drops everywhere.  Glades are unmarked but easily visible where to drop in.  A small mountain with a big mountain feel.  Would make a nice home mountain if you lived nearby.  Also still plenty of untouched powder in woods and sides of trails that hasn't gone through the freeze and thaw cycle.  Pictures to come.

This is the main lift line, a double fall line run we did at the end of the day.  Not nearly as gnary as the lift line and ridge over on Bailey Falls lift.

We started things off dropping into some woods along the steepest ridge  we came across all day.   We scouted a couple drops for later in the day.  The entrance was enough to scare away one of the 3 riders in our group this day.  The lift line, while not a double fall line like the other looked much steeper.  There was a gap drop we looked at all day but, didn't have the courage to do.  It looked much bigger on the ground after dropping in under the lift which was along the ridge that was the steepest drop we came across today.

We spent the morning exporing the woods.  It didn't take long to see if you were willing to ride some thicker woods, there were fresh tracks to be had.  By 11:30 we headed down to the car for some sandwiches.  This was what the parking lot looked like at mid day.  We started counting empty chairs between people on the lifts.  It wasn't uncommon to see 5 to 10 empty chairs between people on the lifts.  The lack of any crowd on a Sunday was enough to give me a biased view of this mountain.

Some various pictures from around the mountain yesterday.  Some fresh snow, rock drops and different angle of the double fall line lift line trail from one of the glades.

I hate to say this on our beloved NY State Ski blog, but VT has been the place to ski this winter, seems like every time we get a unit of snow they get 4 times as much.

^ seems to happen every year.

6 inches  yesterday thru overnight in NVT

As an added bonus you also get great views of the Adk

Lol.

"Great", huh?

I don't understand this comment, at least in the context of "this season."

Plenty more pics coming for Middlebury.   Stay tuned for Bolton Valley trip report with a fresh 6 inches from today!

Some pictures along the Bailey Falls lift.  This lift doesn't run on Mondays amd Tuesdays.   It also appears to be all natural with no signs of snowmaking on this side of the mountain.  The steep drop under the lift has a ridge.  To the left looking up is a steep glade that we did for one of our first runs.








We made sure to hit underneath the lift.  A couple pretty hairy steep turns got my heart pumping.  We then explored in the woods to the right of the lift line looking up.  They were uncleared and unrode from what we could tell all season.  Our snowboarder hung tighter towards the lift line.  I tried to traverse in farther to avoid a rolling steep that looked like it dropped off complerely before getting too close and getting in a bad situation.  Instead I found my way to what looked like multi pillow drops of untouched snow shown in the last picture.   I could tell it was a pretty big series of drops and couldn't bring myself to do it especially without scoping it out from below first.   I managed to survive getting around the drops.



When I got through it, I got to see what I was seeing at a better angle.

I'm pretty sure above must be Bailey Falls.  The signature trail that is uncut still and no one rides.  Could be at least one day.



The last pic shows the ridge to the right of the lift line where the waterfall was located.  









The last pic was a rock drop on the bunny hill.  There was even multiple glades off the bunny lift.  This mountain is hardcore.  Most of the people there were not.  It is definitely a place you have to scope out and get used to the lay of the land.  Not only are there crazy drops but also flat areas to avoid.  We had a couple hike outs in deep snow from chasing untouched powder.  It was a lot of fun and skiing at a place that has weeks old powder and feels like was opened just for you can't be beat.  I regret passing by Middlebury last year on the Vermont ski card but, I will be making this a regular stop on the Glade Runner yearly east coast tour.  The only negative but, funny thing was they required the boarder to use a leash.  He had to go buy one and they had a shit ton of them in there.  Pretty sure it's the top seller.  Busiest lift was the magic carpet, so we avoided it.  There were plenty of other drops around the mountain, we didn't feel the need to explore.  

Glade Runner wrote

THAT is cool!

glade runner go buy a lotto ticket. you stepped in it this year. looks nice

I hope this isn't a stoke killer, but I wanted folks to have another view of Middlebury before booking a vacation, weekend, or full week there. It looks like glade runner and I skied there in similar conditions, days old untracked still there for the taking. It is an interesting place but the steeps are very short and always followed by flats. Neat place but it isn't going to get your pulse up even if there is lots of untracked.

Stoke killed.  I wouldn't book a vacation there.  I don't think they have the amenities for that.  What they have is an escape from the crowds.  And I think from familiarizing yourself with the mountain and woods you can avoid most of the flat areas.  I'll take a little hiking anyday over 45 min lift line waits.  But, hey everyone is different.

River,

I don't think anyone is going to look at the trail map and book a week there, but there are some absolutely awesome shots there. Quite steep. And you can get a good 500 vert in stunning widely spaced birches days after the storm. So what, there's a runout. I think MRG and Stowe are about two of the only mountains you can find that really don't have any flat terrain top to bottom.

ml242 wrote

River,

I don't think anyone is going to look at the trail map and book a week there, but there are some absolutely awesome shots there. Quite steep. And you can get a good 500 vert in stunning widely spaced birches days after the storm. So what, there's a runout. I think MRG and Stowe are about two of the only mountains you can find that really don't have any flat terrain top to bottom.

Come on ML, you know better.  Add Platty to that list.  No runouts at Plattekill!