TR: December goodness in Vermont, Dec. 03-04, 2007
Day 1, Monday, Dec. 3: Hospital Hill, St. Albans, VT
The early-December snow wasn’t just falling in the mountains, it was falling at our house too. MisterSheSkisTrees had to work Monday, but we’d already planned to go to Jay on Tuesday, when most of the storm would have filled in everything and opened up more terrain. ;)
After work Monday, we already had about 8-10 inches of snow at our house. All work and no play makes us crabby, so we decided that after snowblowing and shoveling, we would go across the street and play on Hospital Hill (leave it to a patroller to live across the street from a hospital :rolleyes2 ). I won a pair of cross-country skis last year—quite the prize for someone who has never cross-country skied. This fall, we bought bindings and boots so I could learn. MisterSheSkisTrees has these fun little toys by Karhu called a Meta ski. Ever hear of them? They are a fat ski (110cm underfoot) that is about 4 feet long with moleskin on the base and bindings similar to snowshoes so you can wear regular boots with them.
First things first, MisterSheSkisTrees shoveled off the deck so we could get to the grill to cook dinner later:
http://www.letsplantrips.com/persona...tshoveling.jpg
Now for the fun stuff. MisterSheSkisTrees cruises down the hill through “Medical Center Trees” on his Meta skis:
http://www.letsplantrips.com/personal/scottcruises.jpg
Some nighttime skin track stoke:
http://www.letsplantrips.com/personal/tracks.jpg
Clearly, I am still learning to cross-country ski. What a soft landing:
http://www.letsplantrips.com/personal/susanfallsxc.jpg
Needless to say, we went to bed with visions of white cotton candy dancing in our heads.
Day 2, Tuesday, Dec. 4: Jay Peak, VT
The snow continued to fall overnight, and the forecast said it would snow all day Tuesday. Mother Nature did not disappoint. We found about 30 inches of goodness when we got to Jay Peak. For a Tuesday at Jay, it was pretty crowded. Guess a bad case of the flu was going around New England. :FIREdevil Even the Meatheads were there—very cool to meet them and ride up the lifts with them. :)
The day started out very hectic because the mountain wanted to open up the Bonaventure chair and as much new terrain as possible. Lucky me, they needed the manpower, so I was assigned Green Mountain Boys for trail check. MisterSheSkisTrees did the product testing on Racer. It’s hard to be the first one down a trail for the season. You just never know what you’ll find. I’m sure you all feel very sorry for us. We both discovered about three feet of perfectly billowy snow, no surprises lurking beneath, and floated down the mountain laughing the whole way. :biggrin: Great warm-up run! No pictures of that, because we were working.
I’m not working—at least not too hard—in this photo:
http://letsplantrips.com/galleries/a...120407_004.jpg
Or in this one:
http://letsplantrips.com/galleries/a...120407_005.jpg
It was a rather windy day, so we headed into the woods to check out the snow there:
http://letsplantrips.com/galleries/a...120407_035.jpg
Kitz Woods was a winter wonderland. Help, I think I’m lost. Wait, I do see some trails over in the distance:
http://www.letsplantrips.com/personal/jaysnowytrees.jpg
Hmmm, maybe I should go this way. I just don’t know:
http://www.letsplantrips.com/persona...nowytrees2.jpg
As I pondered my options, my personal patroller came to the rescue (MisterSheSkisTrees was so intent on rescuing me, he realized he left his goggles in the patrol shack :rolleyes2 ):
http://www.letsplantrips.com/persona...cottinkitz.jpg
Honestly, we didn’t take a whole lot of pictures, we were having too much fun skiing after all the work we did opening up new terrain on the mountain. The woods all over the mountain were beyond delightful. And just because we could, we took our first Dip run of the season. It had been plundered, but we still found some hidden treasures. On December 4, 2007. What do you think about that? :cool:
