As most of the East Coast got pounded with over a foot of snow, Northern Vermont only got 3 – 5 inches. With the snow came the wind, which was howling and effected some of the lifts today at Stowe. I wasn’t about to get there for first chair and took my time getting to the hill. When I arrived, the only lift worth hitting was the Quad. I bundled up and headed to the lift. My car thermometer read 5 degrees and the winds were gusting to 30+ MPH, I went completely sealed with balaclava and hood. The Quad was running at half speed and made a long, cold ride to the top. The chairs were swaying pretty bad, needless to say the bar was lowered and we were not all that comfortable on the lift. The conditions were OK with some new snow on the sides of the trails. If you hugged the side, you could find good snow. But, you couldn’t get too cocky because right after a few good turns, you were probably hitting some ice/hardpack. Not the best. The visibility was very poor making it even tougher to navigate the snow conditions. By 11:30ish, Patrol decided to close the Quad, so we headed to the Triple for a couple of laps. It was a nicer ride to the top since the triple is pretty protected, but it’s slow and long. By the time you were at the top, you were cold. We noticed that the Gondi had opened and most people had migrated over there. The Gondi was a nice relief from the elements, but since the winds were so high, the Gondi was running at about 30% of it’s normal speed. It was well worth the wait though because the snow over on Perry Merrill and Gondolier was great! You could definitely get some good pow slashes and turns down the whole trail. After a couple of runs over at the Gondola, we decided to head out and warm up! Hopefully we’ll get some more snow in the next few days and get those woods ready for shredding!