Trip Report - Stowe, Vermont - 27 Dec 2004

After taking the last 4 days off (for cleaning my apartment, watching
movies, and practicing violin) I went back to skiing today. I started
at the Stowe Mountain Resort and skied up to the Trapp cabin. Not all
trails were open, but on those that were open, conditions were generally
good to very good, with a small layer of snow on top of a solid icy base.

At the Stowe Mountain Resort, there weren't a lot of trails open: Timber
Lane, Burt, Bruce, the westernmost loop of Bear Run, and a couple of
crosscuts connecting Burt with Timber Lane (but, N.B., not the Stowe
Derby "corkscrew"). Later in the day, they opened Peavey (fair
conditions) to Houston, and Houston down to Timber Lane. However, more
importantly, Ranch Camp trail was open, which connects the Stowe
Mountain Resort trails with the Trapp trails.

At the Trapp Family Lodge trails: Hare Line was closed, and, according
to somebody at the cabin, Owl's Howl was closed. Slayton Pasture had
fair conditions, but there were good to very good conditions on Haul
Road, Cabin trail, Oslo, and Parizo. That's as far as I got; I've
gotten into a pattern of spending way too much time kibbitzing at the
cabin (I'm tempted to coin the word "Kabinkibbitzing"). Today's new way
to make a nuisance of myself was to cut slices of bread and toast them
over the fire (melting cheese or chocolate on the toast, since you asked).

Seriously though: warming huts are a significant advantage for any
cross-country center that has them: Trapp, Bretton Woods, Great Glen,
Mt-Ste-Anne, Norsk, and Windblown are the ones that come to mind in the
New England/Québec region.

Lew Lasher
Stowe, Vermont and Cambridge, Massachusetts