# TR: Mt Snow 2/6-2/7/2010: Dew Tour Weekend



## Glenn (Feb 8, 2010)

Mods, you can combine these two threads if needed. http://forums.alpinezone.com/showthread.php?t=71762

A very solid weekend at Mt. Snow! My wife and I did first tracks on Saturday morning. Jeff and his daughter rolled up..shortly after, MommaBear and family showed up. The light was a bit flat Saturday AM, but the sun came out and made for a really nice day. It was chilly, but the sun was out and the clouds stayed south. Woohoo! 

I forgot the damn camera...but I used the BB instead. :lol:

How warm up butter: 






Mineshaft was awesome! The Mini Pipe (Euler Memorial) was in great shape. The rollers at the bottom were great! You can get a little air if you tuck and straightline down to the bottom. 











Here's the top of Inferno. This was used for the Dew Tour...big features! 





Yeah, long line @ Carinthia! 





But the pro skiers were practicing in the pipe so that was cool to watch while waiting: 





Warm up pants at the Grand Summit. Brrr! That had to be cold. 





I :heart: first tracks. Parked the Jeep in the front row near the Mountain Ops building. The only ones closer were the Moo-ver shuttles. Took this before leaving. 





Sunday morning we did a run at Carinthia then headed inside to wait until the village opened. We chatted with a lady who's son was in the Gatorade amateur comp that day. 






The village was cool! They had a lot of vendors and tons of stuff to give away. Here's the Mountain Dew tent. They had a make your own bandana thing. We waited 5 minutes...the line didn't move. So we took off and scoped out some other tents. 





The North Face skied well on Sunday. There was some scratch, but the snow was fast. We had a great time on Plummet...I hit Little Steep a few times for some bump action. 










The bumps on Rollercoaster were awesome! I skied those top to bottom and it was quite a workout. I blame this forum for getting me to venture back into the moguls. 

Carinthia was nice as well. I had a lot of fun playing the terrain park. We took a week day off the week after next and I'll have to make it over there when it's less crowded. 

I had to take a pic of this beast! Bad arse! I saw it parked on Rt 100. I have a feeling they couldn't get it near their tent due to the snow. Sweet promo rig. 





Ahhh! A nice ending to a solid weekend of skiing. A PBR on draft at "The Saloon". What a great place that is BTW. 





Here's all the stuff we got at the village. My coat already tips the scales at 50lbs...what's another 10lbs? 





Dew Tour stickers they gave us at Equipe Ski:





Make your banner from Paul Mitchell...my wife's:


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## RootDKJ (Feb 8, 2010)

Cool.  I feel like I was almost there.  Lift line looks as crowded as Blue was.


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## Greg (Feb 8, 2010)

Glenn said:


> I blame this forum for getting me to venture back into the moguls.



Nice!


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## Glenn (Feb 8, 2010)

Greg said:


> Nice!



I'm serious too! :grin:  I haven't really skied them since I was younger. It's a lot of fun too...technical and challenging. I'm going to see if I can get my wife to venture into them later this seson. She's a bit gun shy due to her ACL repair. But she has expressed and interest in the seeded vs. natural. 

Root...if you make it to Mt. Snow this year...I'll give you a Toyota lanyard. I don't know how we ended up with so many. Or if I forget, I'll just buy you a beer. :lol:


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## o3jeff (Feb 8, 2010)

Glenn said:


> Here's all the stuff we got at the village. My coat already tips the scales at 50lbs...what's another 10lbs?



I don't think you were suppose to take the candle and holder...


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## Glenn (Feb 8, 2010)

o3jeff said:


> I don't think you were suppose to take the candle and holder...



Now you tell me! That thing was a real you know what to ski with for the rest of the day.


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## Euler (Feb 8, 2010)

Sounds like a fun weekend.  I took the weekend off from skiing and slept in Sunday!   I'm getting a bit frustrated waiting for some natural snow.

We went up and watched the Halfpipe finals Saturday night under the lights...it was really fun.  We scored  viewing spots right up front at the bottom of the pipe and were able to really see the athletes' expressions as they finished their runs.  It was really cool to watch them congratulate one another as they each finished.

Oh, and Glenn, just for clarity the Euler Memorial Halfipipe is the Superpipe NOT the minipipe, please:smash::smash:


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## Glenn (Feb 9, 2010)

That's awesome you were able to get up close! Did the kids have a blast? I was surprised to see a lot of people there in "street" attire during the day. That was cool...people were coming to the mountain just to see the comp. 

D'oh!  My bad! So should I call that the "Mini Euler"? :lol:


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## MommaBear (Feb 9, 2010)

LOL!  We have that same photo of the Beast!  I wonder how many other people stopped in that driveway to snap a pic.

Nice job on the loot!  My kids didn't make out nearly as well - thou my 14 year old managed to score an awful lot of food items!  Had to laugh, when I went to get him Saturday night at the end of the competition, I came by the food vendors near the lodge and they were hawking the food as 'buy one, get one free".  Thought for sure I'd see my son lurking there waiting for the "free giveaways"!  The kid is a beanpole but can really put the food away...lol!  Found him instead right up in the action at the bottom of the pipe.


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## jaywbigred (Feb 9, 2010)

Good TR. The lines WERE v. long at Carinthia on Saturday, but the singles line moved. By the time we got out, there was plenty of scratch, esp. over on the NF. They could def. use some snow, pronto. 

The seeded bumps on Roller Coaster were awesome to see, as you pointed out! Love to see the mountain embracing this! Skied them a bunch, and they were definitely a good workout. Also, even though they were seeded, they weren't the easiest bumps I've ever skied, due to the hard, fast snow, and the speedy lines. You have to have v. quick feet for those bad boys. My buddy who loves to ski bumps but at 6 ft 7 isn't the most nimble couldn't really do them. But I had fun!

We also skied Monday, and got out a lot earlier. It was nice to ski some fresh cord, Ego Alley was awesome. We are still needing to work on our party-sleep-ski cycle. Getting out late is starting to be a pain.

Cheers!


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## Glenn (Feb 9, 2010)

Ok, good! I'm glad I wasn't the only one who stopped to take a pic of the truck! It looked like it was parked outside of someone's house. I was on the lookout for someone to to snidely yell: "Can I help you?" Luckily...didn't happen. 

Yeah, getting to the mountain early helps. We were doing reverse half days, but that got to be a bit of a PITA...parking, lodge crowds. Getting there early lets us pound out close to a full day of runs by early afternoon.


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## arik (Feb 9, 2010)

*avoiding dew tour crowds*

I went to Stratton Saturday to avoid the Dew tour crowds at Snow and looking at the pics of the line, boy I am glad I did that. Stratton had people but no lines on the lifts I chose to use, no bumps available. There were some roped off seeded moguls on snowbowl side by the ropetow but a sign said "no public Access, Allegro program only." There was no one using those bumps much of the afternoon. Great blown snow on the trails, thoguh when I tried out some tree skiing in Kidderbrook Ravine it was gnarly.

There was a lot of traffic on route 100 heading towards wilmington from snow which I tried to bypass by turning left and I got really lost somewhere around south newfane.

Sunday I tried nightskiing at Jiminy peak on the way back to NYC. Never been there. That place is P O S H. Impressive amount of investment, the parking lot and village felt like Deer Valley to me. Nice changing room for day visitors too. Tons of kids out skiing (on a school night?) Overheard one conversation of some 9 year old boys on the lift ("we can stay out skiing late, my dad is half drunk at the bar hitting on your mom") That cracked me up.

They had good snow, fast lift, no line, no crowds, and some bumps. Also fantastic sunset view from above the windmill.


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## drjeff (Feb 9, 2010)

arik said:


> I went to Stratton Saturday to avoid the Dew tour crowds at Snow and looking at the pics of the line, boy I am glad I did that. Stratton had people but no lines on the lifts I chose to use, no bumps available. There were some roped off seeded moguls on snowbowl side by the ropetow but a sign said "no public Access, Allegro program only." There was no one using those bumps much of the afternoon. Great blown snow on the trails, thoguh when I tried out some tree skiing in Kidderbrook Ravine it was gnarly.
> 
> There was a lot of traffic on route 100 heading towards wilmington from snow which I tried to bypass by turning left and I got really lost somewhere around south newfane.
> 
> ...



The funny thing was crowd wise at Mount Snow this past weekend, if you weren't trying to ride a lift out of the Carinthia base area, the lines on the rest of the mountain were what I would call a light Saturday Volume.  My wife and I actually used the regular queue line (instead of the singles line) for the Grand Summit Express during much of the late morning on Saturday and didn't have a wait of more than 3 or 4 minutes,  and they didn't even have the extra length of queue rope deployed either day.  Parking, that looked like a challenge,  but on hill crowd wise, away from the Carinthia base it was a nice, easy day to be on the mountain. 

Totally agree with your Jiminy assessment.  I had a pass there back in the mid 90's as much of the base area construction was happening, and Brian Fairbanks knows how to run a mountain and built the place with the underlying idea that snow quality (and quantity) is what keeps visitors happy, and once you have happy visitors they come back and allow you to then give them other ammenities


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## Glenn (Feb 9, 2010)

I should have taken a pic of the other lift lines Saturday. They actually weren't that bad. Most were about "business as usual". The North Face had maybe a few minute wait? 

There's a bypass you can take to avoid 100...it's all back roads basically from route 9. It then puts you on handle road.


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## jaywbigred (Feb 9, 2010)

Glenn said:


> I should have taken a pic of the other lift lines Saturday. They actually weren't that bad. Most were about "business as usual". The North Face had maybe a few minute wait?
> 
> There's a bypass you can take to avoid 100...it's all back roads basically from route 9. It then puts you on handle road.



Agree re: the lines. There were times Saturday where we used the singles line on Grand Summit, but everything else was just about ski-on.

That back way is great, but on the way out of town there is that one downhill, hairpin left before the stop sign that makes me sweat when there is snow on the ground.


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## vcunning (Feb 9, 2010)

I did have a video created at the Underground Fuel TV tent.  They're supposed to post it in a week or so.  I'll give you the link.  Glenn/DrJeff . . . you'll never guess the content   I was interviewing Adam the whole time.


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## Glenn (Feb 9, 2010)

vcunning said:


> I did have a video created at the Underground Fuel TV tent.  They're supposed to post it in a week or so.  I'll give you the link.  Glenn/DrJeff . . . you'll never guess the content   I was interviewing Adam the whole time.



Hmmm. I'm drawing a blank right now....who the heck could it be? :lol:

Jay...there's another way around to get to Route 9. I "think" It's Higgly Hill to Auger Hole? That'll take you Route 9...in Marlboro IIRC. We took Auger Hole from 9 into Newfane once.


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## vcunning (Feb 9, 2010)

Glenn said:


> Hmmm. I'm drawing a blank right now....who the heck could it be? :lol:
> 
> Jay...there's another way around to get to Route 9. I "think" It's Higgly Hill to Auger Hole? That'll take you Route 9...in Marlboro IIRC. We took Auger Hole from 9 into Newfane once.



Another alternative route is Mann Road (by Haystack Highlands off of Coldbrook) to Ray Hill Road.  It pops you out by Dot's in Wilmington.  It's been our recent choice and avoids the Route 100 backup.


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## Euler (Feb 9, 2010)

If you're heading south, towards 112 through Jacksonville, you could take Higley Hill to LAke Raponda Road and that goes down to Rt 9 just east of Wilmington avoiding the nasty back up that happens at the light in Wilmington


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## MommaBear (Feb 9, 2010)

Euler said:


> If you're heading south, towards 112 through Jacksonville, you could take Higley Hill to LAke Raponda Road and that goes down to Rt 9 just east of Wilmington avoiding the nasty back up that happens at the light in Wilmington



That's the one we keep intending to use...but then realize we need to hit C&S to drop off the rented DVDs.  :x    Thankfully, we usually leave later than the masses and most of the backup is gone thru that area.


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## arik (Feb 10, 2010)

Glenn said:


> Hmmm. I'm drawing a blank right now....who the heck could it be? :lol:
> 
> Jay...there's another way around to get to Route 9. I "think" It's Higgly Hill to Auger Hole? That'll take you Route 9...in Marlboro IIRC. We took Auger Hole from 9 into Newfane once.



That's the way I took, Auger hole road to route 9 (are you telling me I wasn't lost!?) It felt so far.


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## vcunning (Feb 10, 2010)

arik said:


> That's the way I took, Auger hole road to route 9 (are you telling me I wasn't lost!?) It felt so far.



If you thought you were lost, try it in late March when it's all muddy and full of holes.


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## Glenn (Feb 10, 2010)

arik said:


> That's the way I took, Auger hole road to route 9 (are you telling me I wasn't lost!?) It felt so far.




Auger Hole will take you into Newfane(if you take it from rt 9). You can get to the mountain that way as well. But I think the best thing to do is to take Auger Hole to Higgly hill (if you're coming from route 9) Auger Hole turns to Higly Hill pretty pretty quickly. We had to turn around to get back on Auger Hole. That what us flatlanders get for "hey, let's see where this road goes!" at night, while it's snowing.


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## arik (Feb 10, 2010)

I drove up some other road called Stratton hill Road that on the map led to route 9 but totally ended unplowed with little room to turn around


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## drjeff (Feb 10, 2010)

vcunning said:


> If you thought you were lost, try it in late March when it's all muddy and full of holes.



That's the fun ride time!!  If you're REALLY adventerous,  you can stay on Higley Hill Rd until the end, where it intersects with Rte 9 (EAST of Hogback!) and then continue across Rte 9, winding through the "back country"  eventually into West Halifax and then onto Rte 112 less than 3 miles from the VT/MA border!  Mud season though, unless you're in something like a Ford F350 Superduty or a Hummer H1 or a large vehicle manufactured by someone like John Deere or Caterpillar,  it's an adventure to say the least


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## Glenn (Feb 11, 2010)

arik said:


> I drove up some other road called Stratton hill Road that on the map led to route 9 but totally ended unplowed with little room to turn around



That's the fun thing about unpaved VT roads...they may turn into an unplowed Class IV with little to no warning.


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