Trip report - Stowe, Vermont - 3 Feb 2006

I skied today at the Mt. Mansfield/Stowe Mountain Resort/AIG ski touring
center in Stowe, Vermont. Conditions were for the most part fair,
although poor on a few trails. After yesterday's drenching rain, we
were pleasantly surprised with the quantity and quality of snow. On
most trails, snow coverage was still quite good. (The exceptions were
in the northeast quadrant: Double Bit and the eastern halves of Bear Run
and Peavey.) The snow was soft but not slushy. The groomers did an
amazing job.

Trapp's was was officially closed today, but the connector trail (Ranch
Camp trail) was open and groomed, and other skiers reported that the
upper Haul Road was in good shape. The scheduled collegiate races
(University of Vermont "ski carnival") were cancelled, and the
AIG/SMR/MtM trails were occupied by regiments of college teams. (Go
Crimson!)

Craftsbury is reporting that they are open today, with some
deterioration on the Grand Tour and lakes. (This is why we went to
Craftsbury on Thursday, because we figured that Stowe would hold up
better after the rain.)

Lew Lasher
Stowe, Vermont and Cambridge, Massachusetts

Have the Trapp/Mt. Mansfield XC border wars been resolved?
For the best XC snow in the Northeast Kingdom of VT, ski the state park
on the Eastern side of Lake Willoughby. It gets a very nice mini-lake
effect snow off the lake, which freezes very late in the winter. There
is a nice 5 K loop and other BC trails that go on for miles. High
school XC teams often bring over grooming equipment so it's darn nice
free skiing. The back side of Mt Pisgh is also nice BC skiing.
Parking near Long? Lake. In the same general area. That is where
Craftsbury tells people to ski when they don't have snow.

Have the Trapp/Mt. Mansfield XC border wars been resolved?

Last I heard about Trail Wars, AIG/MtM-dba-SMR has paid some amount of
money to Trapp for the current season, but it's unclear what will happen
in the future.

Meanwhile, Trapp has been closed a lot. Serves him right. God is
punishing him for being so greedy.

Lew Lasher
Cambridge, Massachusetts and Stowe, Vermont

Craftsbury definitely has slightly more reliable snow than Trapp. But
even there it has been sub-par in recent years.

Ralph Scott wrote:
Craftsbury definitely has slightly more reliable snow than Trapp. But
even there it has been sub-par in recent years.

My experience has been that the higher elevations in Stowe do slightly
better than Craftsbury; I'm probably thinking of the Stowe Mountain
Resort (Mt. Mansfield) and the cabin-level trails in the Trapp system.
I suspect that if you kept track of SMR and Craftsbury over time, they'd
probably come out statistically equal.

Lew Lasher
Cambridge, Massachusetts and Stowe, Vermont

Some years Craftsbury officially closes before the snow is gone. By
late March attendance falls and it isn't worth keeping the lodge,
dining hall, etc. open, so they close even though there could be a
couple more weeks of skiing to be had. Sculling is now there number one
draw so they don't try to squeeze every last day out of the ski season.