Welll after a 8.5 hour drive from Pittsburgh to Doset VT, we arrived at the marbledge Inn in east dorset nice little place. Me and my friend mike were up there for our L2 skiing exam at stratton.
Sunday we freeskied stratton to get use to the hill. After much work to get 25 dollar comp ticket we were on our way. Stratton is one of the best cruising mountian I have been too. Liftline and Black Bear are a blast. People allways say that its is flatton sure its not challenging(c'mon I have been to MRG and Stowe now 10 days;)), but there are some intersesting glade and bump runs there. "Why Not" glade had like 10 foot drop in it too bad the cover was still thin, and worldcup did have some nice fairly steep bumps in it. the snow condition were some of the best I have found for a p;ace with that much traffic and limited natural snow. Lifts are all super fast, and lift lines were almost no exsitent. some of the minuses is that the place is unworldy expensive(8 bucks for a Hamburger!!!
), and some(like a 1/4) of the New Yorker there might be the rich but they have no brains and or kindness.
Monday and tuesday was the exam, I had Shostick, Beerman, and Whatley for tbhe exam. 3 outta outta of three Examiners agree that I am skiing to L2 standards. So yeah! I passed and remember this is only the start of my 4th season on skis. Our group was so good it wasnt really an exam, we ended up clinicing to prepare for L3 for alittle over half the time, which was much better than an exam.
Wednesday we headed up to Jay Peak to keep our sanity, it is the cheapest place in the state for more people and almost never crowded. IT was a very cold day -14 degrees upon arrival and 12 degrees a when we left. No PSIA discount but college students get 35 dollar lift tickets. Some People say Jay hypes there snow fall. There new snow for the day was 3 inches. we found KNEE DEEP cold snow everywhere, for sure underated today. Simply put best day of skiing in my life. after feeling a sardine packed into the tram I scope out the local see a group a of Local College kids with fat skis and ask of I can follow, they say yes and we head right in to Valhalla which was closed but some pulled the rope next time we passed. Snow was well ... lets just say i didnt stop smiling for a couple of runs and my face was hurting. Valhalla had soem nice litte pillow drops in it and ledges and literally everyone in our group was getting untracked snow. Next we head to Beyond Beyond and got more untracked snow I found the Ledge in there that the tree grows outta of(good landmark in those woods), there were all in shock when this Pa boy did a 360 safety off the 8 foot ledge. We then headed over to stateside of a slice of lift serviced backcountry call "The Dip" deepest snow on the mountian I had face shots for the first time in my life and i just charged it.(Disclaimier The Dip is out of bounds skiing and if you know where you are going is very easy to access, but if you miss the traverse out you will end up on the road or worse, only go in with a local) After 3 laps on this run we went in for lunch. the afternoon was the same great skiing with one little scary mishap by me. I stoped above a tree in everglade and 2 seconds later was suck down to my chest in snow. With help it took like 10-15 minutes till I was out of the treewell, was really scary even though I was skiing in a group of 4, and had help to get out.
Well long sorry, and I will have some short video take from beaver pond as soon as i figures out my new digital camera.
