Stowe, VT 12/12 - 12/14/08

[ski now work later]

Vanhoskier and I traveled to Stowe for ESA Stowe, a great ski clinic. We drove through the ice storm and were on snow Friday by noon. Several lifts were on wind hold and the gondola wasn't open for the season until Saturday, so it was a little busy on that side of Mt. Mansfield. We found plentiful snow from the storm (Stowe received about 12" total) with bumps and soft piles of chop as the icy crust had been cut by the morning skiers and mixed in with the fresh snow. We both skied our Auras which were perfect for the conditions.

Saturday and Sunday were cold and sunny and we skied all over the mountain on packed powder conditions with some early season features in area that fill with snow later on in the season. Here are some photos, sorry, no actions shots, to busy skiing.

Moon over the parking lot at the Stoweflake Saturday morning: (I tried taking the photo from my room but the window interfered so I dashed out in my pjs and ran into Snowhot who was already on her way to Midway Lodge for the morning meeting.)

Vanhoskier with her beloved Auras:

me with Wendy at the top of the quad:

View from Spruce Mountain:

The sun beginning to set behind Mt. Mansfield:

The end of a great day on snow:

 

[Sheena]

Great pictures! Looks like a fun day!

 

[SnowHot]

My account of the weekend........

It was a busy weened for me, but a profoundly rewarding experience!
I had met SNWL and knew what a profound woman she is, but looked forward to meeting Vanhoskier, who did not disappoint. VH, you are such a special woman!

My flight went fairly uneventful on this trip to Stowe, which was a nice change from last year.
Woke up Friday morning for a day of interesting skiing to say the least.
Its been described at crust on cream cheese, which is just about right.
That is some miserable stuff to ski on/in/under.
The quad shut down because of ice overload, and the triple was berzerk with lines so I trusted Whiteroom and Epic to lead me to fun. We headed to Spruce to do some Hike To turns.........(keep in mind, this is my warm up run)

As you can see, visibility was flat and unusual.
I started last and followed the guys,(Epic, Whiteroom, DoWork, Blitz)
Thinking I was too far in the back seat, I leaned forward a touch and experienced a tip dive, which proceeded to catapult me ...........can you say Face Plant?

I met up with the Divas when they arrived, and exchanged hugs, but we took our runs in different directions. There were 32 ish people there, which made it difficult to stay together.

To be continued.

 

[SnowHot]

Saturday

ESA Stowe had the most registered students its ever had, this year, and the mix was made up of some amazing people. It was especially great for me to revisit with some old friends, and embrace some new friends.

I hung with Bob Barnes group a bit on Saturday morning, and may have even learned something.

I didn't get any action shots but I got a group lesson shot.

The groomers were firm,(West coasters may call it ice) and the sun was amazing!

The banquet had three speakers........Weems, Robin, and Bob Barnes........all entertaining and informative.

The raffle prizes were pretty nice, including a couple of lift tickets to Okemo, the Book Edge of Never, a Swix Gear Bag, and a pair of K2 Skis........Vahnoskier, which skis are you going to get?

More to come!

 

[SnowHot]

Some candid Shots from Sunday......

I'm not sure why I look grumpy in this shot because I was definitely NOT grumpy.

 

[SnowHot]

Sunday was spectacular!
The temps were warmer than Saturday and we were ready to seize the day!

I hung with robin and Sue's groups and was impressed with the dynamics. The enrollment was the largest ever for ESA Stowe, and yet, the groups were connected quite nicely.

A few shots from Sunday:

Robin, doing a "how not to"
She looks good even when she's bad.....

and this,.......how to

At the end of the day, we met at the top of the quad to remember Stu Campbell.
It had been fairly windy at the top of the Quad all day, but it was calm and the light changed when we met up.

I took one last trip up the quad with Cgeib and Tog who commented how the wind picked back up..........
Thank you Stu for giving us peace.

 

[ski now work later]

Some candid Shots from Sunday......

Snowhot, can you please email me the 3 photos above? I love the one of the whole group. It was a big group made even more fun with your company on Saturday and with Chris and James all day Sunday.

 

[HotChocolate]

Looks like you all had a good time despite the weather. Wish I could have been there.

 

[Severine]

Lovely pics, ladies! (Of course, I already peeked at all of yours on Facebook, SnowHot! ) Looks like you made the best of the crappy weather preceding the event. Glad to hear the ESA is doing well!

 

[ski diva]

Not exactly ESA, but I went up to Stowe and skied with SnowHot today for some post-ESA fun. WARM temps, soft snow, and a great time!!!

 

[cwmscm]

I had a great time at ESA at Stowe and would highly recommend it to all ski divas. Glad another ski diva won the skis!

 

[ski now work later]

I had a great time at ESA at Stowe and would highly recommend it to all ski divas. Glad another ski diva won the skis!

I must add that I saw cwmscm on video when we were all being reviewed. Her coach was using her video as an example of exactly how to ski bumps -- what fantastic skiing! Wish I'd seen it in person.

 

[SnowHot]

Some candid Shots from Sunday......

Snowhot, can you please email me the 3 photos above? I love the one of the whole group. It was a big group made even more fun with your company on Saturday and with Chris and James all day Sunday.

Absolutely. I have to finish downloading the pics of the weekend, but I'll get it done and put some more up.
During Apres' ski on Sunday night, I downloaded pics from Bob's camera to my computer. Some of those you see here are from his, which were taken by Tog, (IIRC)

Lovely pics, ladies! (Of course, I already peeked at all of yours on Facebook, SnowHot! ) Looks like you made the best of the crappy weather preceding the event. Glad to hear the ESA is doing well!

Sev, I have sooooooo many more that I haven't put on facebook yet. Just wait!

 

[SnowHot]

Not exactly ESA, but I went up to Stowe and skied with SnowHot today for some post-ESA fun. WARM temps, soft snow, and a great time!!!

We laughed a lot!

And skied a lot!

And embraced a coupla bears......JMS and epic.

Wendy, how many pockets do you have?

A good time was had by all!

 

[SnowHot]

SNWL, did you get the pic of the three of us on top of the Gondi?

As I sort through some of the group shots others have shared with me, I found this one of Vanhoskier which is a very nice individual shot.

 

[ski now work later]

SNWL, did you get the pic of the three of us on top of the Gondi? [/IMG]

No, the info. the guy gave me was a dead end and I never received the promised email either.

 

[SnowHot]

I took the liberty of downloading pics form Bob's camera while I was at Charlie B's Sunday night. I'll get some pics of you and the gang organized and get them to you.
Love the pic that you got of the three of us! Thanks for thinking of it!

 

[Kiragirl]

great pics! Isn't skiing FUN?

 

[vanhoskier]

Great pics, guys! A busy week kept me from logging on earlier, even though I've been filled with Stowe memories for the last few days!

It was great to spend more time with SNWL, whom I met at Okemo last year at a Diva Day. And, I was thrilled to finally meet SnowHot! What a great woman she is! We only took one or 2 runs together but I look forward to the opportunity to ski with her in the future.

I was ECSTATIC to win the K2 skis in the raffle. For those of you who don't know, I have a lot of fat skis in my quiver, plus my Hart F17's, which are skinny-skinny. (I love them, BTW). I skied my Auras at ESA and took a lot of ribbing (mostly from Epic's Tog) about my fat skis and their inferiority. Bob Barnes was curious about them, and also wanted me to ski some slalom skis, so we switched....he skied my Auras, and I skied his Hart Javelins. Bob loved the Auras, he said they were a "very special ski!" I loved the Javelins for their speed and ease of carving turns. Soooooo, when I won the K2 skis, it was serendipitous....I was meant to get some good carving skis.

I am going to order the Burnin' Luvs, in a 170, as soon as the card from K2 arrives in my mailbox. Yay! I think they will be the perfect addition to my quiver, especially for the PA "packed powder" (er....ice) that is so prevalent here.

Anyway, it was an AWESOME weekend....I learned a lot, had some great skiing with great conditions, and met a lot of wonderful people. Yay for ESA!!!!!

 

[SnowHot]

Vanhoskier, it is great to see someone embrace all that ESA has to offer, from the great coaching to the phenomenal social climate. You did, indeed embrace the entire experience!

When we took the Cool Down Run in honor of Stu, it was a ton of fun. I know we were sucking tail wind from the guys, but dang we were ripping!
All I could think is........Life does not suck!