Ride Delaware ? Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 After 10 days away, I finally made my return to the MRV. What a return it was. While I had been enjoying moderate snowfall at Killington the previous two days, it had been dumping up at the Bush. While Killington had reported 8" in the past 48 hours, Sugarbush was reporting nearly 24". While Killington has been t2b for nearly a week, Sugarbush just opened t2b yesterday. With this little system coming through, it looked like things could only get better. I woke up this morning around 7:15 and quickly looked outside. It was snowing at a good pace, and nearly 3" had fallen at my townhouse at 1,700'. Sugarbush was reporting nearly 5" at the top, which seems to be the theme early in this season. The snow has been incredibly elevation dependent, but Sugarbush has an upper mountain lift and is well prepared for this type of snowfall. We were able to get on the mountain shortly after 9 AM. Hardly anyone was at the mountain, but the snow continued to fall while Sugarbush lent a helping hand on several trails. We immediately headed down Downspout to Heaven's gate and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of powder still untouched on the sides. We decided to head down Ripcord, which still had snow guns running, to Spillsville. Spillsville was the first natural trail I had ridden all year. The top 3rd was deep and soft with no bare spots. As we worked down the trail, the snow became less copious with some rocks in the troughs, but they were easily avoided. We then loaded HG and rode Ripcord t2b. It was a good mix of natural and snowmaking, but the snow guns were running a little wet and sticky near the bottom. We then loaded the lift and headed to Organgrinder for four straight runs. It was natural snow on top of a snowmaking base. The snow was soft and copious and the trail was uncrowded. Following those runs, we decided to head over to Jester and try out some lower mountain runs that they were opening on natural snow. It's rare that the S turns on Jester aren't icy, but today was one of those days. We headed down the Valley House Traverse and went down Murphy's. Simply put, this must be what heaven is like. It was deep (I went up to my shoulder trying to get up), it was soft, it was relatively untouched, and boy was it fun. We followed that up with a run down Birdland, which was exactly the same same as Murphy's. We then returned to Murphy's for our final run. The place where things got real tricky, was the bottom of the mountain. Murphy's and Birdland both feed into Lower Jester, which was open without snowmaking. There were several open water bars on that section that needed to be hopped. Following that, where Lower Jester intersects with Lower Downspout, the snowmaking mounds began. Earlier in the morning they had been running wet, but now they were turned off and had become some pretty firm mounds. The mounds were 5-6 feet high and were spread out across the relatively flat and relatively narrow trail. When we reached the end of Lower Jester, we went to head down Coffee Run only to find it closed. Apparently they had some giant snowmaking mounds that were then run over by a rogue snowcat and made it impassable. They funneled us down Gondolier, which was open on natural, was littered with water bars, and had some dirt poking through. It got the job done, but with the reopening of Coffee Run tomorrow, I expect it to be closed. Overall, I think I did 11 runs. It was a phenomenal day, and it beat Saturday as my best early season day ever. I would have loved to have kept riding, but with the low visibility, deep snow, and moguls, I took a hint from my out of shape legs and decided to play it smart. I believe we totaled 8" of snow throughout the day with more lightly falling tonight. I guess Ullr is making up for last year. It's hard to believe that the summit has already seen 80", and it's only December 5th. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RidgeRacer Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Dude you're killing me with these TRs man! Looks fantastic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFskiDan Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Castlerock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Castlerock? Wrong. Lower Downspout I believe. They don't blow snow on Castlerock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trackbiker Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Thanks for the report. I'll be there on Friday. An update on conditions on Thursday would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFskiDan Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Wrong. Lower Downspout I believe. They don't blow snow on Castlerock. I saw the flag, but not the snow gun. i jumped the gun on that. Not Castlerock. Has a very Castlerock look too it, and actually their webpage shows Castlerock as open. Love me some Castlerock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 I saw the flag, but not the snow gun. i jumped the gun on that. Not Castlerock. Has a very Castlerock look too it, and actually their webpage shows Castlerock as open. Love me some Castlerock. Whenever I hear Castlerock I get the fragglerock song in my head 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarponhead Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 I saw the flag, but not the snow gun. i jumped the gun on that. Not Castlerock. Has a very Castlerock look too it, and actually their webpage shows Castlerock as open. Love me some Castlerock. Lower downspout is a relatively mellow but fun bump run. By the looks of the trees it looks to mellow to be CR. But yeah, definitely that classic New England skinny trail look Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Way to get after it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ride Delaware ? Posted December 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Castlerock is open, but it is still hiking only. Not quite enough snow to take a beating from the masses that running the lift would attract. That section is actually Lower Jester. Lower Downspout technically ends at the Castlerock Cutoff and Lower Jester takes over from there. Minor detail. I'll try to update a bit later in the week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Way to get after it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ride Delaware ? Posted December 6, 2016 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Just cycled through Castlerock. Castlerock and Cotillion were amazing. Still some sweet powder stashes. Slightly thin on runout from low elevation. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Way to get after it!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tnt Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Way to get after it!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NMSKI Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Sweet! I'll have to get back up there, looks like a totally different mountain than I skied when I was there. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 I always liked early season in Vermont cause the steeper runs that usually have moguls are smooth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Law Posted December 6, 2016 Report Share Posted December 6, 2016 Looks real nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tnt Posted December 7, 2016 Report Share Posted December 7, 2016 Gonna be there for the first time over new years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrilledSteezeSandwich Posted December 7, 2016 Report Share Posted December 7, 2016 Gonna be there for the first time over new years. That's dynamite!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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