POWDER AFTERNOON AT SMUGGLER’S NOTCH

Heavy snow coming down at the bottom of Sterling Mountain.

Today is a Tuesday, which means I skied after work. Normally, my go-to after-work mountain to ski is Whiteface, which is my home mountain. However, today saw wind holds across the Northeast. At Whiteface, only beginner lifts were spinning.

After taking a look at the wind holds going on at Jay Peak and Sugarbush, I settled on skiing at Smuggler’s Notch, where the Madonna 2 Lift was on hold, but the Sterling Lift was spinning. Madonna 1 still isn’t open for the season so that was a non-factor. No matter where I went to ski it was going to be a gamble, but I’m happy with my choice.

Short line for the Sterling Lift.

When I got to Smuggler’s Notch it was dumping and it didn’t let up for the entire afternoon. I imagine they picked up five to six inches of snow before I got there. With Madonna 2 closed, there was a short line for the Sterling Lift. The Sterling Lift provides access to Sterling Mountain, while Madonna 2 provides access to part of Madonna Mountain. All of the skiable terrain today was off the Sterling Lift. Smuggler’s Notch also has a beginner area, which had open terrain, but it’s detached from the main base area so I didn’t ski any of that at all.

The lift seemed to be running slower than normal, but that may have been due to wind. While the lower part of Sterling Mountain wasn’t too windy, the upper part was. When you got off the lift it was howling. This left some parts of the more exposed trails wind-blown and others buried in deep powder. While there were a few icy spots out there today, conditions were overall excellent on groomers, on natural snow trails and in the trees.

Lower down the mountain, coverage was thinner in the trees and on the natural snow-only trails, but they were definitely skiable. For instance, Highlander Glade, which is higher up the mountain, only had a few thin spots. Poacher’s Woods, which is lower on the mountain, had more thin spots. Any thin spots were avoidable with the right line, though. With plenty of snow in the forecast over the next few days, I think any problem areas will be taken care of quickly.

Overall, today turned out to be an awesome powder afternoon at Smuggler’s Notch. Like I said, anytime there are widespread wind holds, the choice on where to ski is a gamble. Today, I was lucky. Maybe I should play the lottery.

Talk to you tomorrow,

Lincoln