Winter to Fall and back again

By:  Ben
October 20, 2010


By now you’ve surely heard, seen, and hopefully skied the bounty from the Noreaster of October 2010. Lionel first predicted the storm over a week ago, and kept us up-to-date as the storm developed. Greg got out for some Snowbowl Schuss and then quickly followed it up by skiing from the summit of Vermont’s highest peak, with some damn good pictures along the way. I watched the storm develop on our weather page, and thanks to the great info there, especially the on the ground reports via FISWX, I decided to head to Killington for my first turns of the season.

With Greg exploring Mansfield, I needed to enlist someone else for my mission. Fortunately, my friend Owen was in town with skis and his creekboat. We tossed the boats on the roof, the skis in the back of the car, and left Hanover at 5:30 with several other friends in the hopes of catching the best snow. Driving up Route 4 in the pre-dawn darkness revealed no signs of snow, but as we ascended toward Killington we rose out of the yellow-and-orange tunnel of foliage into winter. We first passed snow around 1700′, and by the time we were booting up in the K1 parking lot, there was a solid 4″ of snow on the ground. We could skin right away, and things were rapidly appearing more wintry.


Things were really interesting by the bottom of the Glades/North Ridge triple!

At this point it was below freezing, with snowflakes lightly flurry-ing in the air. There was snow everywhere in the trees and things were decidedly winter-y. We quickly skinned to the top, switched over, and dropped in, hooting with anticipation of the first turns of the season.


Owen doesn’t need junkboards!


More knee-droppage, with the rest of the crew following behind

About half-way down we came out below the the clouds and could actually see where we were going. The snow as a wonderful, dense consistency that protected the bases of our skis and let us let our skis run. This sure didn’t feel like mid-October!


Owen schussing the steeps


Tom with the official FIS it-snowed-almost-2-feet-in-October Face (ISATFIOF)

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Read about the author:   Ben
Enjoy this TR? Read another: TR: Nortwest Couloir Climb

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13 Comments

  1. christian
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 12:04 am  
    1

    ben…sick! does that guy have a tie on!?

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Ben
      wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 8:22 am  
      2

      haha yes. rob was one of our friends who we ran into up there, never figured out exactly why he had a tie on…

  2. Brian
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 9:28 am  
    3

    Great writeup and good shots! I still can’t believe how much snow Killington got out of that storm.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Ben
      wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 10:06 am  
      4

      thanks Brian! Ya, Killington was pretty insane, I couldn’t believe how much snow there was either!

  3. Harvey44
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 9:37 am  
    5

    Great stuff. Reminds me of flick I saw once (Warren Miller?) where these guys were kayaking on a ski hill … using paddles to rudder themselves all around … and at the end the go flying of a huge cliff, into a raging stream and just continue to paddle in their merry way. This report is a classic.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Ben
      wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 10:11 am  
      6

      snowyaking!

      (from last fall… one day we were looking to run some rivers in the whites, but everything was lower than expected. we drove by bretton woods and they were blowing snow…)

  4. Lionel Hutz
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 10:01 am  
    7

    Great job ben…personally with the mixed sysyems I see this winter and the temp profile I think you should be able to squeeze quite a few double days out of the the early winter!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  5. stuckinjersey
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 10:50 am  
    8

    Freaking outstandingly grand. Got to stare at this goodness while I sat in traffic on my 2 hour commute this morning and it made everything so much better. Got me thinking that its time to visit my couches connections in Vermont.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
    • Ben
      wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 11:28 am  
      9

      thanks!

      There’s still snow up there! It’ll be interesting to see what’s left after today (it’s raining here now), but the upper elevations could see a few inches of new snow to freshen things up…

  6. lil' brotha
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 12:12 pm  
    10

    Well done fellas. Seriously jealous that I headed to the ocean for waves instead of the mountain for snow. great stuff

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  7. natron
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 1:22 pm  
    11

    Big snow and big rips, now that’s a daily double!! snowyaking on fresh manmade?? how hairy was that? looks like fun in a few inches of fresh pow, I’ll try this year on a hill down the road..

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  8. Paul
    wrote on October 21st, 2010 at 1:38 pm  
    12

    From a few hundred miles south on long island these pictures are a godsend!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  9. Sweet trip
    wrote on October 22nd, 2010 at 3:42 pm  
    13

    Everyone is getting the goods. Whiteface Slide 1 was awesome yesterday! Lots of pillows and heavy snow in the upper reaches of the mountain. I only have film photos otherwise I would attempt to post.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
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