View of Mount Mansfield from Upper Nosedive.

Today was a pretty EPIC powder day, especially for April 17. I had a feeling it was going to be an incredible day earlier this week so asked if I could take a half day off to enjoy it. When I say I took a half day off work, that means I got off work at 8 AM, because I work 4 AM to noon. All morning I was weighing between going to Jay Peak and Stowe. Both have plenty of terrain open, including trees, both have good bases and they both received upwards of 10 inches of snow.

In the end, I chose to go to Stowe. Why? Because I had one more Epic day pass to use this season and it made sense to use it on a good day at Stowe. I’m a season passholder at Jay and I’ve had a lot of fantastic days there this season. I’ve only been to Stowe once, and while I had fun, it was raining. Today was the opposite. It was a beautiful sunny day with fresh snow. Despite the date on the calendar, it looked like winter on the mountain.

I got to Stowe around 10 AM and they were spinning the Forerunner Quad and the Sunrise Six, which provided access to around 70 trails total. There was a decent breeze, but neither lift ever went on a wind hold. The snow was powdery in some areas up high and a little heavier as you went down the mountain, but it was nothing terrible. Temperatures rose above freezing across most of the mountain, but any sticky snow was limited to lower areas.

Coverage was honestly excellent for the date. On some of the runs that are natural snow only, you could find bare spots, but where they’d made snow there’s still plenty of snow. The trees were also in great shape and I never really worried about hitting rocks, even in glades that are not as high up on the mountain.

I skied several runs for the first time ever today: Bypass, Nosedive Glades, Upper and middle Goat and Midway. Bypass is just a short connector trail to bypass the top of Upper Nosedive, but don’t let that fool you. This is one steep connector trail. The Nosedive Glades are just off Nosedive and Rimrock. These glades are awesome and the coverage in them was fantastic. I enjoyed the mix of evergreen trees and hardwoods and I thought the spacing was really nice. Goat is one of the Front Four, all of which were open today. It was steep, bumped up and had bare spots in a couple of areas to add to the fun. Midway was pretty good aside from one little area that had a fair amount of rock peaking through. It had some pretty decent sized bumps on it, but it was nowhere near as steep as something like Goat.

I spent most of my day lapping the Nosedive Glades and any other trees I could find that were open and skiable, such as the Christie Glade and the Sunrise Glade. I especially enjoyed Sunrise Glade, which I cruised through multiple times. Stowe has some pretty fun trees and I’m looking forward to getting back there next season to explore some more.

Never Quit Skiing,

Lincoln

POWDER DAY AT STOWE ON APRIL 17

THE FINAL DAY OF THE SKI SEASON AT BOLTON VALLEY