# Stowe: 11-5-06



## awf170 (Nov 5, 2006)

Oh, yes!

Some random guy coming down Nosedive.






Bypass and Nosedive woods look nice (and they were).





Steve and Marc





Pretty mountain!





Top of Gondi.





Steve likes standing under snow guns.


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## awf170 (Nov 5, 2006)

Steve slaying the "powder".










Mark is enjoying the views





Mark is not enjoying hiking in ski boots.





Steve likes the views from chin-clip.





Having some fun.


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## awf170 (Nov 5, 2006)

More fun on Chin-Clip.





Cool contrast.





Marc having fun near the bottom of Chin-Clip.





Steve on Chin-Clip.





" Oh, no! Where is he going to go?", thinks marc.





Mad steeze.





We also got some sweet grass skiing in near the bottom, but sadly no one got any pictures of it.

A very fun day. :-D


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## thetrailboss (Nov 5, 2006)

There's some serious snow there!


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## thetrailboss (Nov 5, 2006)

awf170 said:


> Oh, yes!
> 
> Some random guy coming down Nosedive.



This looks like MIDSEASON skiing!  Look at that base!  Wow, I was in the wrong place yesterday....


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## Marc (Nov 5, 2006)

Jeez kid, you're fast.  I think Steve mighta got one of the grass skiing at the very end of my runout.

Can't wait to see his pictures.  Cool, cool day.  Now I'm being corrupted into wanting a touring setup.


Damn you two!


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## Marc (Nov 5, 2006)

awf170 said:


> Having some fun.



Sweet pic!


New desktop.  Austin, can I get that one full sized?


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## andyzee (Nov 5, 2006)

Damn trails look like they were groomed


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## riverc0il (Nov 5, 2006)

thetrailboss said:


> This looks like MIDSEASON skiing!  Look at that base!  Wow, I was in the wrong place yesterday....


funny thing is, that is the worst that the base has been in almost two weeks.

i have attached the grass skiing shots. folks, i kid you not that i am ready to ski over some rather sketchy stuff to eliminte a few extra yards of hiking. but never before have i been so out classed by a skiing partner in reduction of down climb. bravo marc!  i shoud have the full selection of pics posted to my site within the next day or two. my favorite line from today was "damn, i wish it was still october!" damn fine day number six for me and 3rd day of the season skiing the trees, sweet. great meeting and earning some with you marc and a pleasure as always austin. nice shots, btw.


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## thetrailboss (Nov 5, 2006)

Hey guys--how did that new Gondi look?


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## petergriffen (Nov 5, 2006)

how long the hike up take?


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## riverc0il (Nov 5, 2006)

the new connector lift has both stations installed and the haul rope has been hung but is still slack. i can't imagine it not being ready to go by the time they open spruce peak. hike up to snow making on nose dive was probably just over an hour, then of course another slog up cliff trail to cliff house, beats me, i already demonstrated once today that i am not good with time :lol:


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## bvibert (Nov 5, 2006)

NICE!!  Awesome pics Austin!  I'm very envious of you guys.


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## RIDEr (Nov 5, 2006)

It's amazing.  It looks like mid-season already.  I saw a TR on the TGR forum showing some skiers attacked the waterfall.  Did you guys adventure anywhere from the gondola?  Possibly Lookout or Starr?


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## Marc (Nov 5, 2006)

Great skiing with Austin and Steve.

Steve, hope we can do it again sometime... maybe when I eat enough... and get some skins and touring stuff... and am not out of shape.....  I won't be so slow...

:dunce:


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## thetrailboss (Nov 5, 2006)

Marc said:


> Great skiing with Austin and Steve.
> 
> Steve, hope we can do it again sometime... maybe when I eat enough... and get some skins and touring stuff... and am not out of shape.....  I won't be so slow...
> 
> :dunce:



What?  You did not bring any animals (mountain goats) to carry your stuff up the mountain?  C'mon Marc!  You're slacking!  :dunce: :wink: :lol:


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## cbcbd (Nov 6, 2006)

Haha, had I only known... I decided late Sat that I was too ansy to wait any longer and headed up to Stowe Sat night and skied on Sunday, including Nosedive (excellent) and Chin Clip (awesome!). I'll post a trip report soon.
Up higher it was exactly like midseason base. The other side of the mountain is a little sketchy and they still have to groom a lot of it out and get more snow down. 
Good times, I'll have to hook up with you guys sometime and be the straggler.


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## Birdman829 (Nov 6, 2006)

You must go through gas money like it's nobody's business Austin


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## SKIQUATTRO (Nov 6, 2006)

sweet.......and i'm here on Long Island....argh!!!!


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## Greg (Nov 6, 2006)

Nice pics!


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## awf170 (Nov 6, 2006)

RIDEr said:


> It's amazing.  It looks like mid-season already.  I saw a TR on the TGR forum showing some skiers attacked the waterfall.  Did you guys adventure anywhere from the gondola?  Possibly Lookout or Starr?




We did upper nosedive, nosedive glades, and chin-clip.  We were thinking about checking some of the steeper stuff out like national liftline but hiking through snow guns is not to much fun so we decided to head down and hike back up to the Gondi side.



Marc said:


> Great skiing with Austin and Steve.
> 
> Steve, hope we can do it again sometime... maybe when I eat enough... and get some skins and touring stuff... and am not out of shape.....  I won't be so slow...
> 
> :dunce:



You don't want to get in too good of shape though.  Either get in better shape or getting touring gear, either one and you will be even with us.  You don't need both though because you will blow by us.  Like I said yesterday, I bet you would be about the same speed as Steve and I with touring gear.



Birdman829 said:


> You must go through gas money like it's nobody's business Austin





About $30 to Stowe and back, not too bad.  I rarely go over 65 mph to keep the cost down though.



> how long the hike up take?



The whole trip took us just over 4 hours.  Steve and Marc got around 2,700 ft. of vertical and I got 3,100.  We also took it pretty slow.  So I would say if you're in decent shape you could get to the top of the Gondi in just over an hour.






Also, I am extremely disappointed in Marc.  He actually is a very good skier and not nearly as out of control as he is says.  I didn't even see him fall once.  Though I did miss the tree-well incident which could have made up for it. :lol:


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## Marc (Nov 6, 2006)

awf170 said:


> Also, I am extremely disappointed in Marc.  He actually is a very good skier and not nearly as out of control as he is says.  I didn't even see him fall once.  Though I did miss the tree-well incident which could have made up for it. :lol:



Yes, that was quite funny.  Ask Steve.  A hemlock and a birch tried to eat me, or at the very least, imprison me.

Stupid trees.  Kind of a "had to be there" sort of thing.


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## cbcbd (Nov 6, 2006)

What time were you guys where? I wonder if I was around any of the areas when you guys were. 9:30 I was at the top of Gondi, 11 I had done Clif and Nosedive and was heading back up Nosedive. I don't remember the in between but at 1:30 I was heading up Gondi again.


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## awf170 (Nov 6, 2006)

Marc said:


> Yes, that was quite funny.  Ask Steve.  A hemlock and a birch tried to eat me, or at the very least, imprison me.
> 
> Stupid trees.  Kind of a "had to be there" sort of thing.



Did you flail around on your back like a beached whale too?  That is my usual method of trying to get out of the pesky trees.  It usually doesn't work, but does give the people watching me a great impression. 



cbcbd said:


> What time were you guys where? I wonder if I was around any of the areas when you guys were. 9:30 I was at the top of Gondi, 11 I had done Clif and Nosedive and was heading back up Nosedive. I don't remember the in between but at 1:30 I was heading up Gondi again.



We started up nosedive a little before 10 am.  We started down chin-clip at around 3:30.  Besides that I have no idea.


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## cbcbd (Nov 6, 2006)

awf170 said:


> We started up nosedive a little before 10 am.  We started down chin-clip at around 3:30.  Besides that I have no idea.


Ha, so you maybe saw the plate of pasta this boarder who was hiking in front of me puked up  towards the top of Gondi where it's splits up... to the right of the boot ladder?   Dude was not doing too well. At 3:30 I was just done with Chin and was possibly at my car, the yellow one in this pic 

http://forums.alpinezone.com/attachments/312d1162777239-stowe-11-5-06-20061105stowe10.jpg


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## Marc (Nov 6, 2006)

cbcbd said:


> Ha, so you maybe saw the plate of pasta this boarder who was hiking in front of me puked up  towards the top of Gondi where it's splits up... to the right of the boot ladder?   Dude was not doing too well. At 3:30 I was just done with Chin and was possibly at my car, the yellow one in this pic
> 
> http://forums.alpinezone.com/attachments/312d1162777239-stowe-11-5-06-20061105stowe10.jpg



I think Austin had a typo there.  We started down Chin Clip around 1:30 and we were back at our cars around 2:00.


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## awf170 (Nov 6, 2006)

Marc said:


> I think Austin had a typo there.  We started down Chin Clip around 1:30 and we were back at our cars around 2:00.




Yep. :dunce:


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## riverc0il (Nov 6, 2006)

my full report and pics are up on the snow way:
http://www.thesnowway.com/ski/2007/20061105stowe.htm

the thumbnails are finally clickable but i am not going through and redoing 150 trip reports to fix it on past reports. going forward, all my trip reports will have the clickable thumbnail work arond for non-standards compliant browsers that can't do the roll over.


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## Greg (Nov 6, 2006)

Christ, Austin. How tall are you? You look about 7' in this pic:


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## awf170 (Nov 6, 2006)

Greg said:


> Christ, Austin. How tall are you? You look about 7' in this pic:



Hah.  I'm 6 ft. tall and a mean 135 pounds.


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## riverc0il (Nov 6, 2006)

those freeride lifters gotta add two inches in that pic


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## Marc (Nov 6, 2006)

Nice, I'm glad you got some pictures of me in my gaiters... women go nuts over those things you know.


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## meat (Nov 6, 2006)

from your guys pics it looks like stowe has better coverage than what jay has left.  had some nice soft corn like turns today, but not as wall to wall as what stowe looks like.  my guess is that stowe got a little more snow and wasn't as wind effected?

I decided to venture tram side today to stay away from the man-made.  was going to do JFK, but kokomo was a wreck hiking up, too much open water.  ended up doing goat to GMB to deer run which was decent, but nothing of a base compared to last week.  the goat basin was completly wind swept with hardly any snow, good thing for nw passage cut around to GMB which was mint.  lots of grass skiing to be had towards the bottom.

looks like Mt. Man might come out of this warm up better than jay, the next two days look to be the worst of it......I hope.


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## Greg (Nov 6, 2006)

awf170 said:


> Hah.  I'm 6 ft. tall and a mean 135 pounds.



Ahhhhh...that explains it then. You suffer from the same illusion I do - tall and skinny which makes you look even taller. 17 years old and 6' and 135, eh? That's about where I was in high school. I'm an intimidating 165 and 6' 1" now and roughly twice your age.


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## riverc0il (Nov 7, 2006)

meat said:


> from your guys pics it looks like stowe has better coverage than what jay has left.  had some nice soft corn like turns today, but not as wall to wall as what stowe looks like.  my guess is that stowe got a little more snow and wasn't as wind effected?


i don't think snow totals were very different for jay and stowe. jay just got picked clean by the wind and worse retention of snow due to slope angle, wind, exposure, less traffic, less packing, etc. right now, mansfield is definitely the better option, the base is more solid, deeper, and much much much more vertical than jay (almost the entire 2k vert at manny with full coverage). that said, the natural snow at mansfield definitely needs a refresher. i honestly would have rather skied man made than the natural on chin clip but the natural on nose dived had baked in the sun long enough to be quite nice.


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## riverc0il (Nov 7, 2006)

Greg said:


> Ahhhhh...that explains it then. You suffer from the same illusion I do - tall and skinny which makes you look even taller. 17 years old and 6' and 135, eh? That's about where I was in high school. I'm an intimidating 165 and 6' 1" now and roughly twice your age.


so what you are saying is.... drink lots of beer in college?


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## JD (Nov 7, 2006)

I went up on Sunday.  Dust on crust.  Some LOUD sking.  Low angle stuff def. skied better.  I did cliff trial to lower nose dive.  I'd call it very poor conditions, but for early Nov., who's complaining?


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## meat (Nov 7, 2006)

riverc0il said:


> i don't think snow totals were very different for jay and stowe. jay just got picked clean by the wind and worse retention of snow due to slope angle, wind, exposure, less traffic, less packing, etc. right now, mansfield is definitely the better option, the base is more solid, deeper, and much much much more vertical than jay (almost the entire 2k vert at manny with full coverage). that said, the natural snow at mansfield definitely needs a refresher. i honestly would have rather skied man made than the natural on chin clip but the natural on nose dived had baked in the sun long enough to be quite nice.



thanks for some clarification Steve.  I figured you would know since you have been dominating both hills.  yesterday was quality spring snow, just not a ton of it..... I think i'm done til it snows again or some type of lift starts spinning.


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## riverc0il (Nov 7, 2006)

yea, quality is definitely low right now but acceptable for early november. i'll hike for the man made at jay this weekend, i have no shame.


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## Birdman829 (Nov 9, 2006)

awf170 said:


> Hah.  I'm 6 ft. tall and a mean 135 pounds.



Eat a sandwich bro


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## ctenidae (Nov 17, 2006)

riverc0il said:


> so what you are saying is.... drink lots of beer in college?




Goes without saying, and bears repeating.

Nice pics, guys.


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## BeanoNYC (Nov 17, 2006)

Austin, What kind of boots do you have with those AT bindings?


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## awf170 (Nov 17, 2006)

BeanoNYC said:


> Austin, What kind of boots do you have with those AT bindings?



Garmount mega-rides.  They weigh a whopping 6.7 pounds.


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## Marc (Nov 19, 2006)

awf170 said:


> Garmount mega-rides.  They weigh a whopping 6.7 pounds.



Which is like, both of Austin's legs combined, roughly.


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