"SkiHound" wrote in
ups.com:


Chuck wrote:
I'm thinking about booking a trip to Stowe for Christmas week 2005. I

know this is probably the busiest week of the year but it's the only
week I can get the kids out of school during ski season. How is the
snow
coverage that week usually? Can I count on snow or is there a real
possibility that I might be not be able to ski at all? The levels of
the
skiers in our party will vary and we'll need easy green through easy
black terrain. Will we find this at Stowe? Also interested in XC.
Does
Stowe offer XC?
--
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Stowe is a bit of a crapshoot at Christmas though it's highly unlikely
you wouldn't be able to ski at all. Stowe makes snow on quite a few
trails. And are increasing snowmaking capabilities. This year there
were periods of rain that really hurt conditions. We were there the
2nd week in January and conditions were pretty good -- a week or so
earlier they'd had a bunch of rain and conditions were not good.
That's NE skiing. OTH, conditions could be fantastic. Most greens at
Stowe are either located on Spruce Peak or on the far side of the
mountain off the Toll House double. Spruce is a very nice learning
area but the amount of terrain is somewhat limited for an adventurous
novice. There's also Toll Road from the Mansfield summit -- a long
winding, narrow green that's very scenic. Most of the blues at Stowe
are a pretty big jump from the greens. Sections of North Slope and
Lord have some pretty steep pitch that would likely be rated black at
many NE resorts. Perry Merril off the Gondola is probably the most
consistent true blue cruiser -- Gondolier is a bit steeper. Stowe
village is fantastic with lots of excellent restaurants and
interesting shops.




Do they have much in the way of XC? I thought I heard somewhere that
they shut down some of the roads in town at some point and convert them
to XC.