With the expectation of a quiet Easter at home in the wind, but some great spring skiing still on offer I asked my mate Marc G in New York where I could head. He suggested Stowe in Vermont so I booked some accommodation hired an SUV, filled it to the brim then we shot off to the border.
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| Loading the Truck! |
The photo of the truck does not do this thing justice! It was massive with a huge V8 to get it moving. Whilst it was extremely spacious, we still filled it, and despite being very comfortable, its size would make life difficult in the coming 24 hours. So anyway we arrived at a border crossing into the US of A and everyone else must have left at the same time and used the same Gary Garmin GPS to get here about 30 seconds ahead of us. All in all it took about an hour to cross on a day which is apparently the busiest day on the calendar (note for next year - don't cross the border on Good Friday).
So after about 5 hours of driving we were approaching the Stowe Mountain Resort, our accommodation for the next 3 nights. In fact, we were less than 5km away when the road suddenly became very closed with a road block and a sign which said "Closed for the Winter". Well, Gary Garmin almost went out the window when he said the alternative was another 60km, to travel less than 5km! So after a U-Turn and another 40 minutes drive we came upon a great sight.
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| The view from about 10km out (on the right road). |
We managed to get another shot on a following day when the weather was great.
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| Perfect weather and a great mountain. |
We arrived late afternoon at the Mount Mansfield Townhouses and if anyone is ever going to this neck of the woods, we cannot recommend this place highly enough. On night one, just as it was getting dark, a Moose cow just went running passed our kitchen - pretty cool!
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| Tom and Benny out the front. |
We arrived to find our 3 bedroom Townhouse / Condo / Cabin was awesome and was literally less than 5m from the snow which took you straight to the lift.
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| Our Condo. |
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| The view to the lift from the Condo. |
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| Morning one, ready to go out the front of the Condo. |
Day one had a slightly delayed start.....the lift opened at 0900, so at about 0830 I went to walk down to get our lift passes. As I passed by the truck I happened to notice it had a flat. I spent the next half an hour finding the tyre changing kit and then hoisting this massive beast up on a jack which only looked capable of lifting a mini. Eventually with that done and lift tickets in hand we grabbed our skis and were on the snow less than five minutes after returning. The day was spent going up and down the green runs directly next to our accommodation trying to work out how to ski again. With around 20 minutes up on the lift and depending on which runs you came down on it took anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes to get back.
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Jared and I ready to go.
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| Best on Ground - Jared. |
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| Tom off to the lift. |
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| Both followed by Dad, to pull them out of the snow when they have a stack! |
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| Tom on the lift. |
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| Tom boarding down the "Easy Mile" |
Day two was Easter Sunday, so after an Easter Egg hunt we were almost the first ones on the lifts. We decided that today we would take our lift up, then ski across the mountain to another lift, up again and then come back down around the back of the mountain. Jared again proved his natural ability and with poles under his armpits he took off. I could stay with him, but I couldn't catch him. Tom is Boarding so that is a bit more technical and more difficult to pick up, although he had the ability and confidence to get down all of the green runs on offer - he would just randomly fall off every so often. This long trip took the best part of 90 minutes and took us on a lift above a Double Black Diamond Run - my lord, we're not quite there yet I can definitely say. By the end of this and one more run, Tom had had enough, so Jared and I continued on. We were joined by Jac for a couple of runs in the afternoon and by the end of the day, Jared and I were skiing the Green runs without falling over at all, and Jac was down to a couple of falls per run.
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| Tom cruising down "Ryan's Folly" |
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| As always - Jared waiting for us to catch up. |
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| Jared taking the alternate route. |
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| Tom having a cruise. |
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| Tom and I after a couple of runs together. |
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| Tom and I returning home after a run. |
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| A section of the Double Black Diamond Run |
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| Even the Easter Bunny found us! |
Our lift tickets gave us access to the 13 or so lifts across the resort which was massive. We drove up to a different part of the resort (the harder end!), to ride the Gondolier to near the top of Mount Mansfield. We had a waffle and a coffee / hot chocolate and tried some hot apple cider. Then took some photos and headed back down - the scenery was amazing.
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| The Gondolier. |
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| Jac, Jared and Benny on the way up. |
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| The family snap at the top. |
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| A frozen waterfall. |
We didn't do any lessons this time but poor old Benny could really use one or two, mostly because he doesn't listen and generally speaking doesn't care! So he had a few little runs with Jac, but lessons weren't really happening where we were, so he'll have to wait until next season (which we are hanging out for already!). Needless to say he still had a great time and got some skiing in although he didn't get to the top of the hill.
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| Benny doing what he does best - being cute. |
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Benny doing what he does second best - shoving things up his nose and watching TV!
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| Moose tracks from our visitor on night one. |
We packed up our goods and shackles on Easter Monday for the drive back to Canada. After a short stop at a Maple Shack in Vermont for a variety of Maple products, we fuelled the boys with Maple Syrup Moose Heads, and drove back home.
Our next adventure will be our trip to Texas on 17 May to see the V8 Supercars race in Austin. Until then, have fun.
Cheers
MIMS
