White Knucklin'

In Vermont, a lot of time is spent looking for good snow. Sometimes it can be a while before any is found. After a few rainy days, snow showed up. A lot of it. I woke at 4:30 to head out and split up Stowe with the intention of being at work by 10. I walked out of my house, stepped of the porch, and found myself thigh deep in snow. I continued walking and found my truck under a large white mushroom. The door plowed snow when I opened it to start the engine. After 10 minutes of scraping and clearing, I was pushing out of the driveway and into the pre-apocalypse.

As it was still pretty early, the roads were fairly clear- especially with most of the traffic flow discarded in snow banks and ditches. It was a peaceful feeling to know that I was escaping Burlington right before it woke up. As I merged onto 89 from 189, wind was aggressively disrupting plow drivers efforts, leaving huge wind lips and snow drifts haphazardly across the highway, ending my peaceful feeling. With the needle at 45 and fear in my eyes, I focused on making it to the parking lot at 6:00 to meet up with Matt.

I rolled in at 6:20. Matt was gone. The quad typically starts spinning at 7:30. I doubted that I would make it to the top of Liftline in an hour and ten minutes, so I headed over to the Gondola, which opens a bit later. I broke trail untill the top of the first pitch, when a groomer passed by, rolling out my magic carpet to the top. I was at the waterfall before 7:30.

The snow was light on top, but fairly heavy underneath. After one of the better rides of the season, I found myself stuck by the Midway lodge, wading through thigh deep snow trying to get back to my truck. I checked my cell phone to find good news- no work until 1:00. I headed over to the Triple, which was the only thing running, and met up with Hoffman. We took a few runs and managed to find fresh snow each time. We then headed over to the Gondola, which had only just started running. We got first tracks on Perry Merril, and then headed out to Angel Food, where I had some of the best turns I have had all season. A few more runs and I was ready to go to work- late.

I spent all day on the Freebird. Such a good board.










-Austin