Skiing Stowe (with the Other Tourists)

Skiing Stowe was expensive and nice. Great weather, they take care of the mountain well, tons of parking right next to the lifts (!!), lifts go to useful places, many (long) runs of varying description, etc. Locals seem to dislike it because it doesn’t offer them any in-state discounts. Fair enough, but the discounts for out-of-staters aren’t great either, but I got over it.

Top of Mt. Mansfield (Vermont’s highest point!) from the top of the Stowe quad.

Looking up the gondola lift-line.

Chute full of moguls somewhere at the bottom of the hill.

I think this run (“Hayride”?) is less flat than it looks.

View across the top of the ski hill from the quad to the gondola.

So that’s what it looks like. Sunny weather and the snow was surprisingly good everywhere. What else?

• I think the locals also don’t like it because Stowe doesn’t let skiers ski in the woods. That’s usually sort of a thing in the northeast.
• Stowe moves a lot of people up the hill, but the slopes never seem crowded and there were never any serious lines. The place feels smaller than it is. IMHO. In a good way.
• A lot of French-speaking Canadians. Again.
• The resort has two different sides to it with a gondola connecting the two sides (by crossing the parking lot and the highway). The other side is kind of lame though.
• Although it seemed odd to me that the lame side is the one with all the condos and shops.
• The lodges on the non-lame side seem a little more rustic than you’d expect at a ski resort that charges $92 a day.
• Skiing on the quad is more challenging/interesting than skiing on the gondola.
• The bacon cheeseburger in the cafeteria was overpriced. That probably would’ve gone without saying.
• At the top of the gondola they have a waffle stand, but I did not buy a waffle.

Had a great day here. Would gladly return. $92 (or $78 pre-purchase through Liftopia) is steep, but if you’re going to drive 12 hours to go skiing, I mean, you know. May as well.

Your pal,

bkd

Whiteface Mountain Has an Appropriate Nickname

I suppose it’s a good thing it was icy, otherwise I’d feel like I hadn’t had the true Whiteface Mountain experience. “Iceface” being the nickname. It rhymes (sort of) and, therefore, is true. Also it’s icy there.

New York, Adirondacks. Near Lake Placid. It’s where they did all the skiing events for the 1980 Olympics. Steep, stupid pretty, stunningly cold, and firm.

Whiteface summit. The olympic downhill course started here. I tried it. It was steep. And icy.

Heading up-lift toward the summit.

Whiteface summit (highest point in New York!) taken from the top of the gondola.

Lake Placid taken from the top of the summit lift.

Inside the Gondola with French-speaking Canadians. The French-Canadians seem to need to talk (to each other) a lot.

Au Sable River at the bottom of Whiteface Mountain. You cross this to get from the parking lot to the lodge.

I guess that’s enough photos. Whatever. Some bullet points because they’re easier than paragraphs:

• -2 at the bottom, -12 at the top. Degrees Fahrenheit.
• Firm at the beginning of the day, firm at the end of the day.
• “Firm” means “icy”.
• Just about had frostbite from driving there. Switched hands on the steering wheel every 30 seconds so I could keep the other one inside my coat. Apparently it takes more than half an hour for my car’s heater to start working.
• I had never skied from a gondola before. It’s warmer than the normal chair lift.
• Tons of French-Canadians.
• The cafeteria chili wasn’t very good.
• I got my lift ticket for $25.75 off of Liftopia. Regular price is $79. BKD ftw. For once.
• I caught an edge on the downhill course and ended up sliding on my belly for about half a mile. It was steep. And slick.

I imagine a little snow and about 15 degrees warmer would make this place great. If only.

bkd

Ski Blue Knob

Went to Blue Knob a couple weeks ago, which some Web site (not mine) says is arguably the second best skiing in the state (first is some place in the Poconos, which isn’t very close to here). Haven’t had much snow this year, the place is out near Altoona, so it was a 2:15 drive (hours and minutes). The place is basically the same as Whistler.

As evidence:

Green circles mean GO!

Top of the hill. This is taken from the parking lot. I mean, the *parking lot*.

Do the tops of these lifts sort of look like the at-at walkers from Empire Strikes Back to anyone else? Maybe it’s just me.

See? From the parking lot.

This elevation is within 50 feet of being the highest point in Pennsylvania. (Srsly. I was surprised there were elevations in PA that were this high.)

This is the interior of the lodge. The sushi chef had the day off, so I stuck with the cheesesteak.

Experts only.

I’ve never actually been to Whistler.

Condescending photo captions aside, this was a very fun day and a great place to go skiing.

• Unlike Seven Springs (the other PA ski resort I’ve been to), Blue Knob has more and colder snow. By the end of the day nothing had turned to ice.
• It’s also higher, steeper, and has longer runs.
• Also, since it’s primarily pulling people from Altoona and not mighty Pittsburgh (let alone Philthadelphia), there aren’t a whole lot of people up on the hill. I.e., there are no lift lines and most runs you have all to yourself.
• The expert terrain was closer to being expert-like terrain (although a lot of it is on the bottom half of the mountain, where there’s less snow).
• It isn’t actually green circles as far as the eye can see. The intermediates are fun, fast cruisers. There was only one black diamond-ish run that was worth taking (it’s been a warm, dry winter), but it had fresh snow and fun moguls on it. (With more snow, the black diamonds at the bottom of the hill looked like they’ be a good time.)
• Relatively speaking, the place is *cheap*. $38 for all day or $32 for a five-hour pass (any five hours, the clock starts when you buy the ticket).
• It’s cool to be able to park 100 feet away from the top of the hill. No mile-long slogs back to the car at the end of the day. If you decide you want to change from mitts to gloves, I mean, your car is just *right there*. It’s like parking at a bowling alley rather than parking at Disneyland. Maybe I have unusual car-separation anxiety, but it’s nice to be able to see your vehicle every time you get off the lift.
• Because, seriously, the parking lot is at the top of the hill. That’s how we roll here.

Totally worth the 2.25-hour drive.

bkd

(PS, Curiously, as with Seven Springs, Blue Knob has a situation where there are two different lifts that start in the same place and end in the same place. As with Seven Springs only one of these two lifts was operating.)

(PPS, If you’re curious, here’s a trail map. Only four lifts, two of which are redundant and one of which is about 200 yards long and intended for beginners ONLY. The bottom-to-top lift has a midway station, which would be useful especially if you wanted to focus on the more advanced terrain at the bottom of the hill.)

Skiing Western Pennsylvania

It was nowhere near as absurd as I thought it would be. Granted, I went to the biggest and best resort Pennsylvania has to offer (Seven Springs, about 55 miles east-southeast of my house), but still: not absurd.

One of the cool things about it was that, while pretty nice, it was unapologetically western Pennsylvania. It wasn’t trying to shoehorn Park City or Stowe into the Laurel Highlands, it was just trying to be what it was. Frex:

• They have a bowling alley.
• And a tubing hill.
• And a skeet-shooting range.

I think I was kind of expecting it to be either run-down (like anything in the Catskills) or just pathetic (two functioning chairlifts and a j-bar). It was neither and the snow (mostly man-made) was pretty good (although I quickly figured out to stay on the run with the snow-making machinery if I wanted to avoid ice).

I’m using a lot of parenthetical statements (like this one).

This being Pennsylvania, the biggest problem they have is lack of elevation change. Per their website, I think the biggest drop is like 750 feet. So basically, by the time you get your pole straps on you’re at the bottom of the hill.

I mean, not *quite*, but almost. I timed it once: 55 seconds top-to-bottom. And that’s with the clock starting at the time my butt got off the chair at the top to the time it again made chair contact at the bottom. Although that also kind of speaks to how not-overcrowded the lift was.

It also sort of speaks to the kind of runs they have there — almost everything there is a bombing run. There are a couple of runs that are meant to be mogul fields, but with no new snow for a couple of days, these areas were icy and no fun to ski (for me).  The bombing runs were pretty good bombing runs, though, with maybe an inch or so of soft stuff on top and enough small bumps and military crests to keep it interesting (for 55 seconds).

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

The weather was also good — sunny and mid-20’s, cold enough to prevent the formation of slush, warm enough that you didn’t wish you were dead when going up the lift. Kind of a long walk from the parking lot to the lifts (there’s a shuttle bus you can take instead). Bowling alley, yeah, and like six restaurants. I don’t know. Is there any other relevant information anyone wants to have? Even though this was the biggest, most expensive resort in the area, when you take rentals and gas money into consideration, the price becomes comparable. When you also factor in that, short though the hills might be, it has more terrain than other places — yeah.

Right: if (questions) then {ask;}.

bkd

Snow on Snoqualmie and Mt. Rainier (and Mt. Adams I Guess)

One good thing about being a student is that you get a holiday break and you can take it for granted and no one’s gonna think you’re ungrateful. Except I was still working on my one paper, but whatever. By the time I turned the paper in, the weather was sunny, cold, and clear, so I took some pictures and stuff.

From Snoqualmie Pass (my dad and I went skiing there New Year’s Eve; I’d never been there before when the skies were clear AND the snow was decent):

My dad’s lift ticket cost $12. Mine was somewhat more than that.

Drove up to Mt. Rainier. The Guardians of the Nanny State wouldn’t let us past Longmire without chains in the Jeep (not on, just *in*), but the area from the Park Entrance to Longmire was pretty nice.

Then because it got mentioned in the title, here’s Mt. Adams (from Hwy 12):

I guess that’s it.

bkd