Stowe Gets Dumped On

Today was an interesting day on Mt Mansfield.  Tuesday night into wednesday, the mountain received an obscene amount of snow – somewhere along the lines of 2ft+!  Unfortunately, due to the temps this fell as really heavy and wet snow, by no means the most enjoyable snow to ski – it was some serious mank.  In fact, based on some numbers from the National Weather Service’s Mt Mansfield observatory, this snow had a water content of around 14% (according to wikipedia, normal snow tends to have a water content of around 8%, and 2-3% is a skier’s dream snow.  Fun fact: the 17″ that this statistic gave us would have been closer to 110″ if it had 2% moisture content)!

In any event, I decided to try to make the most of the snow storm and went out to Stowe for the day.  Luckily I didn’t get there too early, as Stowe was (yet again) having difficulties with their lifts.  This seems to be a somewhat recurring theme of the ski year for me, but so it goes sometimes.  Luckily, I didn’t get stuck on the lift, although my buddy Josh, who I was meeting up with, had the displeasure of being stuck on the 4Runner for a little while.  As the 4Runner was down, I went over to wait in the line for the Gondola, which was also down, this one due to icing up top.  While waiting in line there, I bumped into by buddy Mike and his friend Ned.  We met up with Josh shortly thereafter, and had a decent day.  Certainly not a day to be remembered for it’s skiing, but with so much snow, a lot of things were very huckable.

This stuff was so sticky that huge snowballs would form if you sent some snow downhill.  Some of these snowballs were as large as beach balls.  Realizing that these snowballs could mess you up pretty good if you were to get hit by one rolling downhill, we decided to ski one at a time.  Here’s Josh skiing through some of the really wet snow.

Josh sending a smallish drop.  Previous to this storm cycle, this had been much larger.

Ned huckin.

Pure stoke in picture form.  The last time I had seen this snow stake, a week earlier, it wasn’t even at 5 ft.

Mike on a double stage waterfall.  Mad props for coming into it from the wrong side, making the drop even sketchier.

And Ned coming down.  He looked good for a moment…

Uh oh.

Oh shit.  This is becoming a lesson in how to fall down a waterfall.

Ooh boy…

Luckily Ned was ok, although it was pretty scary watching him tumble down the waterfall.  Of course, not scary enough to pull my finger away from the shutter…

Mike carved himself out a spot in the snowbank after a small drop.

All in all, it was a good day.  The snow was really wet and heavy, making it almost unskiable in some places, but there was so much of it that jumping off almost anything was possible.

So, in short, I had fun.  And isn’t that what it’s all about (or was that the hokey pokey)?