For the second year now I’ve taken advantage of a great deal on a condo and tickets at Smuggler’s Notch. Six friends and I payed $150 each and got 2 nights stay in a Liftside Condo on Morse Mountain and a 3 day lift ticket. Can’t beat that! We left my house in Enfield at 7:30 Friday morning and were immediatly slowed by traffic and terrible road conditions. our 3.5 hour drive turned into almost 5. Not a great way to start but we were all too pumped up to be brought down by a little delay. Our condo was right next to the Morse lift and across from the shops and bars in the village so that was perfect. We had 2 bedrooms with plenty of beds for the 7 of us.
Part of our group went to get supplies (read: beer) while a friend and I went out for some runs. The surface was fairly hardpacked but it started to snow and was coming down pretty hard by the time the lifts closed.
Saturday, we woke up to around 4 inches of fresh which had piled up with some of the dustings from earlier in the week to form a good 6-8" in some of the more protected stashes. It was cold, single digits in the AM and only rising to the low teens, but we bundled up and made it work. Only around 35 trails were advertised as open, however, many simply had ropes with "Thin Cover" signs up so in the afternoon we started taking our chances. While some areas were definitely thin, others were perfectly rideable. The Shakedown Glades were particularly nice with plenty of cover and a lot of fresh stashes left to claim. The Highlander Glade on Sterling was also pretty good. One more decent dump and the glades at Smuggs will be all set, but the steeper trails like Liftline and Doc Dempsy’s might need more. Liftline was basically a frozen waterfall with patches of snow on it.
We had a great weekend. I got to ride with some new people and spend the apres watching some great football games. I’ve heard we may get the same deal in March. If it’s not the same weekend I’m in BC, I will be back at Smuggs.