Trip report - Montgomery, Vermont - 20 March 2004

I skied today at the Hazen's Notch Association trails and/or the
Catamount Trail (section 29, formerly section Y) in Montgomery, Vermont.
Conditions were good. There has been a little bit of rain in March,
but also some snow, including a little today. As a result, the trails
have a small amount of powder on top of a solid base. The only places
where you had to watch for ice were the open areas at lower elevations.

This is without doubt the best ski season that Vermont has had in
several years. No major thaw since Christmas, and, to the extent that
the temperature has gone above and below freezing, it has been gradual
(as opposed to the violent mood swings that New England weather usually
indulges in), so there has been very little ice.

The Hazen's Notch Association ( http://www.hazensnotch.org ) is a
10-year-old non-profit conservation organization that, among other
things, maintains trails in Montgomery, on the west side of Hazen's
Notch, southwest of Jay Peak. This is a remote, low-key operation;
Hazen's Notch makes Craftsbury look, by comparison, like the Trapp
Family Lodge. The rental skis are 75mm 3-pin, and the rental snowshoes
are mostly wooden (although they have metal snowshoes, too). No
sophisticated grooming equipment here. But you don't really need a
Pisten Bully when you have so much snow and so little ice. The north
central area, centered around Jay Peak, consistently scores the most
snow anywhere in Vermont. The trails have a nice variety of terrain,
with forest, open areas, and some views of nearby mountains.

They also have an excellent trail map, which is online at
http://www.hazensnotch.org/Winter-Trail-Map.htm . I was compiling my
own GPS tracklog, and ordinarily I would go and make my own trail map,
but they have already done what I would have done. (One exception:
their trail map is missing a short section of ungroomed trail that the
Catamount Trail traverses to get from the eastern end of their trail
system to the unplowed section of Route 58 that goes over the notch.)

Lew Lasher
Stowe, Vermont and Cambridge, Massachusetts