Since the Christmas Day storm, Stowe has gone through two cycles of rain to sleet to snow to just plain cold. To some this may sound like a cluster of a weather pattern, but Stowe skiers know this is exactly the pattern the mountain needed to get the base layer in place. Now that the friendly holiday crowds have left and a solid NWesterly flow is developing, the mountain is primed and ready to welcome a parade of 4 – 6″ clipper systems like we saw last night.
Here’s what the cycle looked like…
Tuesday 12 / 28 A couple of inches of cream cheese through the fog, rain and mist:
Wednesday 12 / 29 was bluebird, and very cold. The bumps on Centerline were frozen solid however, a couple of inches of snow overnight and a steady breeze through the notch provided some decent turns for those willing to poke around some of the natural snow trails:Thursday 12 / 30, it was back into a warming trend. Nosedive did open for the first time on Thursday and first tracks on powder from hoses was actually quite good…
But the chopped up powder on an undisclosed trail off the front was better…
Sunday night, it rained….hard!
WIth temps falling throughout the morning hours, no reason to get out early Monday. By mid-day, it was back to snow. A quick couple of inches freshened up the mountain making for some nice afternoon laps down the bumps on Nosedive and skiers left on Gondolier.
This morning it was full on Stowe cold!! Huddling on the quad getting blasted with wind and top to bottom snow guns was less than fun. However, emerging from the madness up top and seeing 4 – 6″ of fresh reminded me that you never know unless you go. The dense, wind blown snow covered (mostly) the hard pack below lurking below and numerous fresh tracks were to be had on trails across the hill. Chinclip was especially sweet and a mellow venture down Lullaby Lane was well worth it.
Finally, wIth a well established base and a parade of clippers headed our way, Stowe is in the Flow.