Back in August of 2011 at the Sugarbush Golf Course, I was drafted from my regular cart duty to become part of the greens crew, due to lack of help.  This “double duty” lasted through the end of the season in mid October.  My winter plan was to move to snowmaking, but instead decided to stay on a 4^th year with lift operations.  Then in mid December, another opportunity arose.  After I talked with those in charge, I got 2 day shifts a week on the snowmaking crew, starting the week after Christmas.  Again, a shortage of hands was the reason.  I have snowmaking experience, having made snow at two other ski areas in the past, but nothing on this scale.

So on December 29, I reported to work at7am, was issued my jacket and hardhat, and an hour or so later, began my first gun run on Valley House Traverse, Snowball, and Spring Fling.  While my first day wasn’t much more than moving hoses and shoveling out Snow Logics, my second and third days (January 4 & 5) were much more productive, including moving guns, setting hoses, and firing up and adjusting guns.  We made a lot of great snow on Hot Shot, Waterfall, and Lower Hot Shot on January 4, and lit up Birdland for the first time on January 5.  Watching the trail go from thin cover/natural snow to piles of manmade snow in a matter of hours was really cool to see, and knowing I had a part of it.

The shift is pretty intense, running 12+ hours, starting at7am.  Usually the end-time is around 7, but can be later, depending on the task at hand.  Our mode of transportation up hill in the morning can be either via snowmobile, groomer, or chairlift.  And it’s a lot of walking, not just downhill, but also back up.  It’s one heck of a workout, and all the hiking I’ve done in the past year or so has trained me well.

Dec 29, first gun run. Snow logics in the sunlight on Spring Fling

Jan 4 morning gun run on Hot Shot, -10 at 7:30am

Jan 12, view from Jester

I’m going to continue snowmaking 2 days a week as long as I am needed, while still performing my regular lift operation duties the rest of the week.  Now that I have a taste of snowmaking at a real mountain, I know what I’m up against and will most likely do it full time next season.

Alright, I’ll stop!

But I do apologize for the lack of updates during these past 23 days.  I have been working a hectic schedule of “every single day since December 23″ at Sugarbush.  Not only am I still running lifts 5 days a week, but I am also (since December 29) making snow 2 days a week, 12 hours a day.  I’ll share more but that will have to wait until later.  We are right in the middle of MLK Weekend, one of our 3 biggest holiday periods of the winter season.  New snow over the past few days has allowed us to pretty much open 100% of our terrain, while still continuing to blast the trails with man-made snow.  Conditions are the best they’ve been all season and are only getting better.

I’ll post a full update along with some pretty cool pics in the days ahead.

It has been a trying few weeks here at Sugarbush, and at resorts throughout Vermont.  Mother Nature has yet to deliver us bountiful amounts of snow, and when we do get cold, it only lasts a few days and is followed by that dreaded 4-letter word that we don’t like to say.  But there is not much we can do.  We are top-to-bottom at Lincoln Peak and have terrain available for all abilities.  At Mt Ellen, Inverness is open, along with the upper mountain, but downloading is still required.

Snowmakers have been taking advtange of the cold temperatures and blowing as much snow as they can to coat and resurface the trails.  I took a few runs today on my day off and found some really nice conditions out there, especially on the Gate House side.  But the views from the top of the mountain, looking down at a brown Mad River Valley are more of something you’d find in April, rather than 3 days before Christmas.  But things WILL change.

I also found out today that I will be joining the snowmaking team for a couple days a week starting next week.  Instead of just running the lifts for the snowmakers, I’ll be one of the snowmakers, working hard to create the white stuff and give the trails at Sugarbush their winter coat.  That adventure for me begins Thursday December 29.  Needless to say… I’m pretty psyched about it.  It’s been a few years since I’ve made snow at Powder Ridge and Mount Southington, but this will be something completely different.

I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and have a safe and Happy Holiday!!!

With the early-week warmth, us lift operators had quite the challenge on Monday and Tuesday… rebuilding our ramps, almost from scratch, with little snow to work with.  On Friday, the day before we reopened, this involved digging into a pile of snowmaking snow that was more frozen granular than anything else, then transporting it to where it was needed via pickup truck or ranger.  On Tuesday, a team of ski patrollers was on hand to give us additional assistance.  The Bravo base ramp went pretty quick, and by the time we came down Downspout, there was already another team of patrollers helping us out.  There was some snow to work with, but not only did we have to build a ramp, but also build a way to get from Downspout to the ramp.

A large part of the operation of a ski resort is the ability for not just teammates of a department to work together, but also inter-department cooperation.  And of course, the biggest teamwork of all comes from the snowmakers, as without them, we are nothing!  They make the snow so that we can build our ramps and have our trails covered with snow.

No doubt, it’s been a challenging early season, but as I look out the window there is hope.  3-4″ of new snow fell overnight, the snow guns are blasting on a route from base of Heaven’s Gate down to the base, and it looks like the cold is here to stay (fingers crossed!)

THINK SNOW!!!

My first run of the season at Sugarbush on Downspout Thanksgiving morning reminded me of so many powder days from last season.  There was about 10-12″ of new snow which had fallen throughout the day on Wednesday and carving my way through it was like a dream.  It wouldn’t be long, however, before the 600 or so guests we had took that powder run and turned it into a mogul field.  Jester was bumped up by that afternoon, but was able to be groomed for Friday morning, leaving a very nice cruising run even at the end of the day.

By the time Saturday hit, the temps at the base area had risen to the 50s, taking a toll on our ramps and corral areas.  A shovel and toboggan party consisting of us lift operators and a large group of ski patrollers all assisted.  On Sunday, we had a pile of snow deposited within the corral itself, so the pile just needed to be distributed.

All throughout the weekend, however, the snow cover continued to diminish, especially on Downspout.  We all knew the handwriting was on the wall, and were surprised when we got the go-ahead to come in Monday morning.  An extremely warm wind had showed up overnight, however, and a snow-eating fog had taken its toll on Downspout.  The plug was pulled around 8am Monday morning, suspending operations until the return of cold and natural snow.

Thanks to everyone who came out to ski and ride over the Thanksgiving holiday.  A big thanks goes out to the snowmakers, who did the best that they could to get us open despite Mother Nature’s curveballs.  You just can’t make snow when its 50+ degrees and unfortunately in November, those days were plentiful.  We are all hoping for cold temperatures so that snowmaking can resume by midweek… and another snowstorm wouldn’t hurt, either!

On Sunday November 13, I did something I haven’t done in 4 years…. go snowboarding at a mountain other than Sugarbush.  Eight of us, most of us being Sugarbush employees, descended upon the slopes of Killington, armed with 2-for-1 coupons to bring the early-season $49 rate down to $25/each.

We drove down Route 100 from the Mad River Valley to Killington, a route I haven’t travelled since before Irene hit late in August 2011.  There are still a lot of signs of devastation, especially in Pittsfield where several houses are uninhabitable, swept off their original locations.  Not just the landscape remains scarred, but two bridges on Route 100 are still being rebuilt.  Things are progressing, but there is much work to be done.  The state has done a great job getting the road passable, even if there are some restrictions.

We got to Killington base lodge, where construction continues in the base area next to the lodge on a new bar to replace the Superstar Pub, which got destroyed during Irene.  We boarded K-1 and at the top, descended down our first run, Great Northern to Rime.  Snowmaking had taken place yesterday and the snow was soft with great coverage.  The snow would soften up even more throughout the day, with temps pretty close to 50, if not over.

There was a pretty good sized line at the North Ridge Chair, but it wasn’t more than a 15 minute wait at the worst.  Because its early season, the only runs available were 3 off the North Ridge chair, and to get to the bottom you had to hike the Peak Walkway to the K-1 Gondola and download.  The run we did the most was Rime -> Great Northern -> Ridge Run, which the lower half opened today thanks to snowmaking.  Other runs we did were a t2b Rime, and Reason -> East Fall.

My first couple runs felt a little strange.  After all, I haven’t ridden since May 1, 2011 and I was wearing my new boots for the first time.  They successfully passed the test and I was able to ride from 11am, till about 3:30 or so, with breaks thrown in between.  We probably did somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 runs.  As each run went by, I felt more comfortable with my gear and the snow.  It felt kind of like a spring day, especially when enjoying some brews at the beer garden set up at the base of the North Ridge chair.

Sometime around 3:30, we retreated to the Peak Walkway to download on the K-1.  The peak walkway was built a few years ago and is quite the staircase.  I counted some 250 stairs, give or take, so it’s quite a workout to end the day.   Back at the parking lot, we decided to get some 25 cent wings and some brews at Casey’s Caboose, before returning to the Mad River Valley.

It was a great way to start off my 2011/2012 snowboarding season.  Here’s to hoping the next time we go riding, it’ll be at home… at Sugarbush.

Well, it wasn’t exactly a banner hiking year for me.  I blame myself, but also my work schedule and the weather.  The hikes I did do were unique in their own ways.   I did get a chance to hike a different loop on Camel’s Hump, partake in views from the top of Mt Abraham, and hike up a volcanic crater in a totally different climate.

Total mileage this year was 13.7  miles.  This included the following hikes:

Burrows Trail, Long Trail, and Forest City Trails, roundtrip loop over Camel’s Hump, VT
Long Trail from Lincoln Peak south to Mt Abraham, then north to Castlerock Peak, then down Castlerock to Lincoln Peak base
Diamond Head Crater, Waikiki – Honolulu, Hawaii

Factors which limited hiking this year:

• Spring Flooding – this affected many hiking access points, including the Duxbury side of Camel’s Hump
• Work Schedule – a non-consistent work schedule, plus many more morning and extended work shifts than normal.  Also starting in the beginning of August, double-duty at work, taking up 4 mornings each week, in addition to my regular 35-40 hour schedule.
• Hurricane Irene – struck in late August 2011 and effectively closed the Long Trail and many side trails from the MA/VT border north to Camel’s Hump.   The closure lasted nearly a month, with many access points remaining inaccessible.

So there are many goals set out again for next year.  Of course, the primary ones will be to mark off more Long Trail mileage.  My goal is to solidify my Long Trail coverage from Sherburne Pass north to Smuggler’s Notch.  In order to do this, I need to hike 3 stretches – each about 10-15 miles long.  Depending on scheduling, I’d like to extend this coverage even further at both ends.   Overly-optimistic goals would be to go south to Killington Peak and north to the Lamoille River in Johnson.  One or more of the factors listed above could derail these plans, so we’ll see what happens.

See you on the trail in 2012!

Back in September, I toyed with a crazy idea to take a vacation to Hawaii.  My dad was out there for work so lodging would not be a factor.  All I had to do was book the flight.  Well it took a good month before I got around to it, and on October 19, I was off on a Delta flight from Burlington to Honolulu.  It was my first plane ride since 1990 and it would be my first time ever off the east coast.  And since I had just finished the season at the golf course a few days earlier and it would be a couple more weeks until I would start work for the winter, the timing was perfect.

My flight schedule was Burlington to JFK, JFK to LAX, and finally LAX to Honolulu, with layovers in between each flight between 1-2 ½ hours.  The flights ran on time (or ahead of schedule) and all of my arriving and departing gates were right next to each other.  It was neat flying from JFK to LAX and seeing where you were in the country on the back-of-the-seat monitor.  After all day traveling, I arrived into Honolulu around 7pm and my dad picked me up.  His hotel was about 2 blocks away from the beach in Waikiki.

My first day there, we drove around the island of Oahu, from Waikiki, up to the North Shore, in a counter-clockwise circle.  The Pacific is so blue on the north shore, then blueish-green in Waikiki.  We stopped at a shrimp truck for lunch, then visited the Dole Plantation for pineapple ice cream, before returning back to the hotel.  The traffic on the interstate H-1 around Honolulu can get pretty horrendous – even with 4-5 lanes in each direction.  Yes, there is traffic in paradise!

Friday afternoon we were going to go to Pearl Harbor, but realizing when we got there that it was an all-day event, instead drove around and then walked the beach.  Saturday, we spent all day at Pearl Harbor, visiting all the museums and memorials there, including the USS Arizona Memorial, plus the Bowfin submarine, Battleship Missouri (the ship which hosted the Japanese surrender of WW II), and the Pacific Aviation Museum.  There is a lot of history in the whole area and it was cool to experience.

Sunday we visited a flea market at Aloha stadium and then went  to Diamond Head State Monument.  I hiked the 600 vertical feet / 0.8 mile trail to the summit in about 20 minutes, a hike which was far from anything I’ve ever done on the Long Trail back home in VT.   There were a lot of stairs involved, which I ran up and down in no time, passing people left and right.  My dad was amazed when I got back from the hike about 45 minutes after starting.  The pamphlet distributed at the gate said it would take 2 hours roundtrip.

My dad and I at Battleship Missouri in Pearl Harbor

Traffic on H-1 approaching Honolulu

My dad went back to work on Monday, so I was free to explore on my own.  I spent one day walking up and down the length of the beach, going in the water and relaxing in the sun, and finding a taco spot – Maui Tacos, then enjoying a Mai Tai at a bar overlooking the ocean.  Another day, I took in the Waikiki Aquarium and the US Army Museum (both on opposite ends of the beach), and on my departure day, grabbed a bite to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise and browsed through some shops on the “strip” at Waikiki.

Myself at the top of Diamond Head

Monk seal at the Waikiki Aquarium

I left Honolulu at 9:40pm on Thursday October 27 but due to time changes and layovers, it wouldn’t be till 8pm Friday night when I touched down in Burlington.  I got off the plane still wearing shorts and a t-shirt, though it was in the upper 30s and the first flakes of snow had already fallen on the mountain.  I was glad to be home, but equally as glad to have made the trip, to have spent time with my dad, and to experience a place where not a lot of people I know have been.

Aloha!

To see the full photo gallery from this trip, visit my Picasa page at

http://picasaweb.google.com/shadyjayvt

The big question is what I plan to do for next season.  There is a high probability that I will go to the grounds crew full-time.  But there is a lot of time between now and then and I don’t have to make any decision until April of 2012.  Until then, it’ll all be about winter and snowboarding…. but first… something different…