Snowhunting

Craftsbury put on a snow-production clinic last weekend at the Eastern Cup, giving racers great tracks and snow. Unfortunately, Craftsbury is the only ski area in Vermont with real skiing being offered, and it's kind of a haul for me to get there. Every blog on the interwebs is focused on searching for snow and skiing wherever and whenever possible. A run on the roads and a lift just didn't seem fair for December 20th, so today I decided there was more to do with my morning hours than drinking coffee and refreshing the fasterskier homepage. I packed a bunch of old skis in the car and spent almost 2 hours driving to wherever I thought skiable snow might be found. It was a nice adventure that took me from Bolton Valley to Cochran's ski hill in Richmond, over the notch to Harwood High in Duxbury, and down into the Mad River Valley and Sugarbush. I later found out that Stowe's Smugglers Notch Road (the road at the base of Stowe Mountain Resort that goes over Smuggler's Notch and is closed to cars in winter) has great skiing, but my journey took me the other direction. I headed South on Route 100, Vermont's legendary "Skier's Highway". When I pulled up, Sugarbush looked like a real winter scene. While the mountain didn't really look like they'd be keen on having me rip around on skinny skis, I took a note from Star Lake and headed to the mountain's golf course. The half-snow, half-grass surface provided surprisingly great classic skiing on a pair of old beater waxless skis. I got in a nice scenic hour of skiing on a beautiful day, and I still got in a lift that afternoon for good measure.

Cochran's had snow, it just wasn't really spread yet
Sugarbush, meanwhile, actually looked like winter
Barely enough snow, but nice scenery
Gotta have a pair of old beater waxless boards!
Looking down a fairway
Getting some striding in. Half grass, half snow
Panorama of the golf course, with Sugarbush in the background

TerkTech self-groomer

Skied at Star Lake on a few inches this morning. I kind of wished it was a little more packed out there, so when we got back to school I went back to the dump behind the SLU facilities plant and built a little device to test out tomorrow morning...



Happy Holidays!
-Adam

On a roll

Yeah the snow situation is rather bleak but two bright spots over the past week.

The team won the Mt. Borah gear for a year design contest which is pretty cool. I didn't really do anything myself other than pass on the info to the team and the guys really got into it. I think we submitted like 6 designs which I thought were all pretty cool looking although I do like our current suit design.

http://fasterskier.com/2011/12/mt-borah-announces-gear-for-a-year-contest-winners/

We will see how they look this winter and maybe it will be time for a change or perhaps these will just be a collectors item for years to come.

On another note we also won a small grant which will allow us to groom some trails right on campus. More on this when the official announcement comes out.

Looks like a small snow event over the next 24-36hours, although it could all be rain. We will see.

SLUSKI Movember

The most important pictures from Canada are surely the shots that capture our team's feeble attempts at facial hair growth. We were definitely outdone by UVM, but our Movember (a campaign to grow mustaches and raise awareness for men's health) was still entertaining. I didn't get a photo of everyone's complete mustached transformation (maybe Connor can put up his collection as well) but here is a sampling. Some were barely noticeable, while others were downright scary. I myself am a double-edged sword. My facial hair comes in blond and light, yet thanks to my dad's genetics I have quite a thick and rich mustache. As soon as camp ended though, I made sure to get rid of it quick before returning to real civilization. The look definitely isn't for everyone. Brace yourself before you scroll down: