Stowe, VT: 03/14/15

After a rather uninspiring day at Bolton Valley on Friday -- hard and fast with stiff snow in the trees (reportedly the first time it's been like this in many moons) -- conditions at Stowe today were considerably better. Skies were cast-iron gray ahead of the precipitation that's supposed to arrive tonight.

I didn't get to the mountain until 8:45 and with lots of traffic heading up the access road, I figured that I'd be looking at a long walk to the lifts; luckily, the huge lot on the Mansfield side is right alongside the gondola and FourRunner quad:



Those two lifts already had small lines, so I took the Over Easy gondola to Spruce:



The last time I skied Spruce was 2004, which I'm pretty sure was the final year of the double chair -- allegedly the first of its kind in the U.S. when opened in 1954 -- so the village and lifts over there were all new to me. What a difference taking the Sensation quad (barely five minutes) instead of 15+ on the old double. which I kinda liked, but hey, that's progress. Sterling and Smugglers had softened nicely in the moderate temps and you could really attack them. I had forgotten how fun these long, twisty trails were.


Top of Spruce


Upper Smugglers


Smugglers


There was a race on Main Street with some kids from my neck of the woods:



Before heading back to the main mountain, I took a quick walk around the new village, which is still partially under construction. It looks pretty popular and the swanky grill there is known as the place to have lunch:



LOL, straight out of central casting ^^ for Spruce Village"





Like pretty much everywhere in the east, locals were raving about Stowe's conditions all the way up through this week's thaw and refreeze. Starr was a no-go given the scratchy off-piste:



Here are some nice pix from JSpin of his kids killin' it in the woods:







Even with sub-optimum conditions, Stowe is a lot of fun and certainly deserves its traditional standing in the northeast Top 5. It skis bigger than the 2,100 lift-served verts and the trails still pack plenty of New England personality. I'm hoping that tonight/tomorrow's storm delivers some fresh snow before I head home Sunday night.

hope the snow was enough to get some of the trails back online, great mountain, just wish i didn't have to sign away my unborn to ski there last time.

ml242 wrote

great mountain, just wish i didn't have to sign away my unborn to ski there last time.

On the gondola, I talked to some Montrealers who had come on a bus tour and got $65/day for a three-day stay. Given how many French-Canadians I ran into this weekend, it appears that the region is making an effort to counteract the tough exchange rate they're facing.

Sunday morning, they were reporting three inches of dense overnight snow on the mountain with continued precipitation expected during the day, which turned out to be the case. It snowed continuously all day and the upper mountain was getting pounded by high winds -- for the first part of the day, they were running lifts/gondola at a slower speed -- creating a borderline whiteout. Once below the clouds about a third of the way down, it was clear sailing. I'm guessing that 6-8 inches had already fallen when I left at 3:30.

On-piste conditions were really nice, you just had to stay on the side of the trail that hadn't been scoured by the wind:



The woods were filled with really soft windsift, but I didn't see many people going in, so not many photo ops:



This guy blasted through that space between the hardwood tree and the pine:



Braving the Winds on the summit:



I wonder how long ago the owner had secured this vanity plate:

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I remember the single. Didn't they give u a blanket for the ride up?

wedeler wrote

My understanding is that AIG Corp. was involved in the devlopment of the fancy base village at the bottom of Spruce.

More than "involved."  AIG owns Stowe Mountain Resort.

wedeler wrote

The front four were much narrower then, I mean alot narrower.

That's definitely true of Liftline and National, but I thought Starr and Goat have essentially remained unchanged.  No?

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I always thought that Stowe's 2100 feet of vert skis way bigger than any 2100 feet at Killington or most of the areas out east. It's just a good mountain, sort of like Jackson Hole. When you ski at places like that you know whoever put ski areas on them either got really lucky or they really knew what they were doing.

I always assumed that ski areas generally sprung up where the snow fell and lingered. Mansfield is certainly one of the snowiest spots in the East.

wedeler wrote

AIG, AIG - so we all bailed out Stowe.  Kind of aggravates me.  What if they had just gone bankrupt?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/government-makes-177-billion-profit-aig-bailout/story?id=17074275

Harvey wrote

I always assumed that ski areas generally sprung up where the snow fell and lingered. Mansfield is certainly one of the snowiest spots in the East.

That's all you would look for if you were to develop a ski area?

No I'm thinking historically. Belleayre became a ski area because it was originally a place where people skied. The same is true of Gore.  I assumed that people skied there because the snow fell there and lasted longer than it did in other places.  I figured that's why most of the areas are north facing too.  Bindings were pretty minimal so steep pitches were less important. Plus before lifts people climbed up. I thought that some of the original trails on Manny are now nordic routes.

What do I know, it's just a theory.

Ya, that totally makes sense but as for the big ones- Jackson, Sun Valley, Aspen, Taos, etc there are stories of their founders searching all over the west for the perfect spot to put their dream ski mountain.

Plattekill is a great example of the perfect 1000 vert hill for skiing imo. It's a skiers mountain. A lot of ski areas out east have a steep upper area and a flat as Kansas lower mountain. Not an ideal scenario really. Stowe is a standout if I remember correctly. All those ski areas out east love to play the numbers game but skiers with a lot of experience don't buy the hype. Quality > Quantity.

I'm assuming most of the ski areas out west were built after WW2, when skis had bindings, vs just a leather strap around the toe.

At least some of those ski areas with steep tops and flatter lower areas never accessed the steep upper parts until the gear was up to the task. I know old maps of Hickory only show Poma 1.

I imagine the progression starting in the 20s... people ski on a hill that everyone knows has snow. They clear glades and eventually trails. Then in the 30s rope tows came along and eventually (50s?) lifts.  You start building lodges and other infrastructure.  It becomes prohibitive to "move the mountain" to a better location.  Gore should have been built on Snowy.

Plattekill was built in 1958.

If you'd like to see far better pix and a more complete story about yesterday at Stowe, take a look at J.Spin's report.

He covered the exact same terrain in the same order as me -- amazing I didn't run into him and his kids.

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wedeler wrote

Just read the ABC article.   O.K., I'll eat some crow.

In your defense it was never assured that that would happen, an NORMALLY and investor has a CHOICE to take a risk or not.  That was not the case here.

not sure how accurate this is but i heard the founder of madriver hiked it for years to see where the snow gathered
before cutting the trails. not sure what they were thinking at gore.

For those that want a taste of the good life, you can test-drive Spruce Village:
EXPERIENCE STOWE PACKAGE -You’re Invited to discover what it's like to be Living At The Heart Of It All
For $699 you get two nights in a Studio Residence plus two lift tickets.  That's really not all that bad when you consider the lift tix are worth roughly $200 - you're paying $250 a night for the room.  

Yep, except a few. Here is some cool historical stuff on Sun Valley.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h2701.html