Day 44: Dec 31

For the last day of the year, I decided on a quick mission to the top of Sterling at Smuggs to be back in time for breakfast! I went up quickly and the ski down was pretty fast too... According to my speed tracker, I clocked 58 mph at the bottom of Treasure pitch... The …

Day 43: Dec 30

Today's mission was to skin up to the top of Madonna to enjoy the sunrise, and get in 2100 ft of vertical. I'm tracking behind to reach my goal of 150,000 ft of vertical this season, with 35,500 ft so far. Ideally, I should be at 45,000 ft, so I guess I'll have to make …

Chainsaw day: Dec 29

After all of this rain, temperatures plummeted today and to add insult to injury, there is barely any snow left on our land at 800 ft elevation. It's the first time since early November that we see the grass everywhere and I can't find 7 adjacent snowflakes to ski on. I didn't feel like driving …

Day 42: Dec 28

Today, the temperature was up to 40F with horizontal rain and strong winds from the southwest. In other words, nothing good for the ski bums! Once again, the chickens were happy and this blog wasn't going to happen, until we noticed a small opening in the otherwise very green radar image.... the rain was going …

Day 41: Dec 27

There is another nasty day on the horizon tomorrow with a forecast of 1" of rain and warm temperatures, and therefore, I got up at 5:30am to skin at Smuggs. I got to the upper parking lot right behind my friend Steve, and we decided to skin up Black Snake after thinking about going for …

Day 40: Dec 26

Last night, Hazel said she would like to skin up with me today - and I was really happy since I had been bugging her to come for a while now - so I was stoked. After reviewing the options, we decided to go to Jay Peak since they allow skinning up while the lifts …

Day 39: Dec 25

Joyeux Noel !!! After opening presents and eating cinnamon buns, we decided to play Monopoly and after that epic battle, I didn't feel like driving to the mountain, so I decided to go for another bushwhacking expedition on our land. We received about 12 snowflakes yesterday, and as you can tell, it was almost a …

Day 38: Dec 24

I got up at 6am to skin up Smuggs and enjoy a freshly groomed run before everyone else. There was about 6 other cars in the Smuggs upper lot when I got there at 7am and I ended up meeting a few ski bums I knew at the top. It was a very pretty morning, …

Day 37: Dec 23

Crazy weather makes crazy ski bums... After 2 days of 50F and rain, it was 18F this morning when I decided to go check if the mountain had received more snow than reported (3"). My plan had been to skin up Smuggs prior to the lifts starting up, but the alarm didn't go, so I …

Poem day… Dec 22

It was raining when the parents woke up, and when the teenagers woke up, it started snowing.. At 800ft, we received about 1.5" today, with more on the way... I thought it could help if I posted a poem... Dust of Snow by Robert FrostThe way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a …

Rainy day: Dec 21

At least some of us are happy !It's raining so hard, the rooster's tail is down. Welcome to winter ! it is 50F, raining hard and the chickens are happy ! A self-respecting ski blog should never have pictures of chickens in it... but it rained all day today, so I had to come up …

Day 36: Dec 20

It was another great blue bird day today; with temps well above freezing in the Champlain Valley. Given the forecast, I wanted to get the most out of this day, so we decided to go check out Dewey mountain, which would have had nice upslope snow (6"+) during the storm earlier this week (monday night). …

Day 35: Dec 19

Today was a tourist skiing day at Stowe with the boys while Hazel was at school. It was also a blue bird day and significantly warmer than yesterday. We skied all over the mountain, starting at the Gondola, then the Quad, the Mountain triple, the Sunny spruce quad, and finally the Sensation Quad. I have …

Day 34: Dec 18

Smuggs and Stowe both reported 6" of new snow this morning, so I had to verify their claims... The weather forecast also showed very strong winds from the north-west, so I knew the snow was going to be piled up somewhere... I just had to find out where. Temp was around 14F at the base, …

Day 33: Dec 17

Finn finished his UVM session last Friday, so he decided to be a ski bum with me today.  We skied with the rich and famous and did the grand tour of Stowe by trying most of their lifts and long groomers.   Visibility sucked, especially on the top third of the mountain;  it was very foggy …

Day 32: Dec 16

Yesterday, after the rain, the temps were well above freezing all day, and overnight, the temperature fell down to 20 degF, which created a crusty surface on the snow (aka: fast and dangerous).  Undeterred by a bit of excitement, I decided to go on a mellow bushwhacking adventure in the woods, between bottling 2 batches …

Rainy day: Dec 15

It rained last night, so I decided to take a day off from skiing to protest this absurd weather. I also decided to switch my blog from the epizy website hosting which was terribly slow.  Epizy had a lot of great features, like unlimited storage and no ads, but the speed just killed it for …

Day 31: Dec 14

It was much warmer today than it has been this past week, so it was nice to have warm toes... however, it was very foggy at the top of the mountain, down to about 2700 ft, so I skied the trees mostly - still finding a few powder spots.  For lunch, I went over to …

Day 30: Dec 13

The forecast called for warming temperatures today, but I decided to go to the mountain right after dropping the kids off at the bus at 6:45am. As I drove through Jeffersonville (elevation 480ft), the temperature was -9F (-23 C), and as I drove up the road to Smuggs, the temperature rose to reach a balmy …

Day 29: Dec 12

Today at the office:  4" of snow overnight, frigid wind but sunny !  John and I took the car to Stowe today like all the other tourists... but there were no other tourists! This may explain the grin below, or it is possible that I just had a fun run through the powdery woods... The …

Day 28: Dec 11

Since it was cold this morning (1F) and I had to bring Hazel at the high school for jazz band at 7am, I decided to commute to Stowe by yet another route: the TearDrop trail, on the western side of Mount Mansfield. Stowe is mostly on the eastern aspect of the mountain. Therefore, a "simple"  …

Day 27: Dec 10

Bluebird day !!!  that sums it up. View of the Notch from Stowe's Octagon at the top of the Forerunner Quad. View from the Gondola side Still lots of fluffy snow in the glades

Day 26: Dec 9

There are no days off for the ski bum who wants to ski 150 days in a season.... therefore, I got up at 5:30am on a Sunday morning to skin up Sterling Mountain at 7am.  The snow guns were running so it was a little annoying; the snow made by the guns is sticky, and …

Day 25: Dec 8

Since it was -3F (-20C) this morning,  I decided to tour my trail network in the woods. My trails are at 800 ft elevation, so we definitely do not get as much snow as the nearby mountains, where the snowpack get significantly deeper above 2000 ft. A lot of downed trees need to be liberated …

Day 24: Dec 7

We dropped off the kids in Essex today and headed straight to Stowe, by car.  This is definitely the most painful way to get to the mountain; the ski commute is far better. There's something strange about why I get more aggravated by following a car going 40 mph than skiing uphill at 2 mph... …

Day 23: Dec 6

This morning it was snowing pretty hard at our house, and John needed help to finish butchering the deer he harvested on Tuesday, so I decided to go for a short ski tour up Dewey mountain in the afternoon, before picking up Hazel from the bus at 3pm. I was surprised that there was only …

Day 22: Dec 5

It was so good yesterday, that i decided to repeat the adventure, minus the car ride though. So I skinned up Black Snake at Smuggs (before the lifts open obviously), across Sterling Pond, up the Long Trail, down Spruce Peak at Stowe, across the road in the gondola and then back up the Forerunner quad.  …

Day 21: Dec 4

After my rainy day geek fest, I decided to go check out the goods since the rain  had switched to snow fairly early in the day yesterday. I decided to drive Hazel to Essex instead of the bus, so I drove directly to Stowe from there, via I-89.  I was right on time for a …

Rainy days… Dec 3

After 20 days of skiing this season, it has been raining yesterday and this morning. Therefore, I decided to geek out with Matlab, and extract a few interesting charts about the snow pack on Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest mountain (elevation 4393 ft, or 1339 m), which is where I ski most of the time. The …

Day 20: Dec 1

To celebrate the arrival of December, I decided to skin up Black Snake at Smuggs, and make my way around Sterling pond and up the Long trail, to the top of the Sensation Quad on the Stowe side (Spruce Peak).  (see day 10 post for the route - shown in yellow).  This "commute" is particularly …