Feb 28 2018

Spring Skiing at It’s Best

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Three of the young fellas from Tuesday’s JISP program.

Nothing you can’t ski over or around.

Open, 32º at 7am. Forecast high 50º. Faster in the morning. Faster in the shade, slower in the sun and later in the morning.

The track of the Thursday/Friday storm, at this moment, is farther south. The total snow forecast, right this moment, is 1-4 inches, as close as I can guess. (I was going to say figure, but really it is guess.)

The picture above is from yesterday, Tuesday, the 27th. The three kids in the picture had skied a few laps, one of them being the Grouse. After this picture, they found the jump on the hill and like boys, were up and down the hil, over and over and over. Kids love to jump, this jump was already built, but a shovel is always close by and some young engineer type is always rebuilding and shoveling to make it bigger, a slightly different shape, or a different angle. This can keep young male children busy for hours. I am not being sexist here, just an observation. Young girls might go off the jump, they just don’t seem quite interested enough to stay and go up and down hour after hour after hour.

The buckets are hung. The evaporator is almost ready to go. Still have to put up the steam hood stack, and the smoke stack. The new line is hung, but not tapped, Sap is collecting the buckets and the back tank.  It will all come together today and we will be boiling by late this afternoon. Ahhh, the smell of maple, nothing quite like it.

 

 

Feb 27 2018

Spring Skiing in the Sun

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Time to hang the buckets.

Open, 26º at 7am. Forecast high 43º. Another beautiful sunny day for a ski.

Great spring skiing. Hard and fast in the morning. Slow and soft as the temperatures rise and the sun softens. the snow. There is a time during the day when in the shade is still fast and in the sun is slow. There was a least one spectacular face plant yesterday, it was a 5 year old, but he was quite surprised when his skis slowed down and he landed face first in the snow.

Road report: Compared to last Tuesday/Wednesday it is a good. Really the dirt roads stay passable when the the frost can go out slowly. Warm up during the day and below freezing at night. There are a few ruts but they are manageable. We have driven the Pruis Prime in and out and it is low to the ground.

Sugaring report: We are getting close to boiling. The sap tubing behind the sugar house is up, and running. The evaporator is being rebuilt it has a new cement pad, a new blower, a new pre-heater and steam hood. Next comes hanging the buckets. Then building a new sap line down the side of the road at MacCuaigs. The new owners name is Menn and Mr. and Mrs. MacCuaig moved on quite a few years ago. But in Vermont ways it will be known as MacCuaigs for another 50 years or so. Chuck is on his way to town to get some more parts. Sugar makers make many trips to the hardware stores and the maple syrup maker stores. 

Feb 26 2018

Wow, Another Day of Skiing

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This couple and their son skied Friday and Sunday. Loving their new sport.

Open, 30º at 7am. Forecast high 39ª.

Chuck is out grooming. He is going to groom the Turkey, Woodcock, Snow Goose, Grouse, Goshawk and Lower Blue Jay. Good skiing! Middle and Upper Blue will ski as back country. Meaning we are not grooming them today. The skiing on the Middle and Upper yesterday was superb! (As reported by a little bird named Martha)

This seems like a low snow year. Simply because there is not a lot of snow on the ground. For a couple days we had impressive snow banks. But they didn’t last long. The fluctuating temperatures keep melting any extra snow. And lots of the precipitation has fallen as rain. If that had all been snow…. 1 inch of rain is equated to 12 inches of snow. (More or less depending on the temperature)

  • We have had 96.1 inches of snow this season.
  • A “normal winter” used to be around 150″ of snow.
  • A high snow winter 190″ to 200″ of snow. (Last 200 incher 2000 and 2001 each season, 2 years in a row)
  • An old fashion normal March snow fall was around 120 inches of snow.
  • The last couple of years March has been low to no snow.
  • February of 2018, so far, 37 inches of snow, 5 inches of water. Using the 1 inch of water to 12 inches of snow. Just in February that would have be 60 inches of snow, Instead of the 37 inches of snow we actually received.  
  • We have always had temperature going up and down, we just used to have more cold, thus more snow falling and then on the ground to work with during the warm spells.

And just for today, the skiing will be good, spring skiing. Get out to ski.

Feb 25 2018

Skiing Today and the Track Is Nice!

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Picture of todays grooming. And it looks good.

Open, 27º at 8:00am. Forecast high 34º.

Ian took the pictures on the Turkey. The skiing looks good. I wouldn’t wait. Get out and ski. He is grooming Woodcock, Snow Goose, Turkey and Grouse. Lower Bluejay and Godhawk are also groomed, with a few small crevasses to navigate around on the last big hill. Come in the shop when you get here to find out if we can just ski some of the other trails as is.

  • Some of the things we have learned this season.:
  • Ski when the skiing is good. Everything else will still be there when you are done skiing.
  • If today is warm, tomorrow will be cold.
  • If today snow is falling, tomorrow could be the “R” word.
  • We love our new groomer.
  • We have lots of friends. Whether they are coming skiing. Shoveling snow. Bringing their friends skiing. Or designing a new web site. We have a friend that loaned us a groomer when ours were both down.
  • Right this minute there is something between our website and Chrom/google. If you are not seeing any pictures on the web site and you are using Chrome as a browser, look the site in Safari or Fire Fox. This is temporary.
  • American Women ski fast.  WOW!
  • We love our jobs!

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